Evening Standard
"At its best The Book of Mormon is indecently funny."
From the creators of South Park, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, and the composer of Avenue Q, Robert Lopez, The Book of Mormon is the most outrageous, irreverent and unstoppably funny musical in the West End. It picked up nine Tony Awards on Broadway before arriving in London in 2013 - and it shows no sign of leaving anytime soon.
Two Mormon missionaries are dispatched to Uganda to convert new followers for the Church of the Latter-day Saints. Elder Kevin Price, devout and ambitious, had hoped for Florida. Paired with the hapless, loveable slacker Elder Arnold Cunningham, he finds himself deposited in a remote village terrorised by a brutal warlord. The world, needless to say, has other ideas.
On arrival, the pair are robbed, threatened, and confronted with a village so beaten down by poverty and oppression that even their song to the heavens is one of furious despair. Elder Price grows rapidly disillusioned. Elder Cunningham, however, finds his stride - improvising a fantastical version of Mormonism spliced with Star Wars and science fiction that begins, improbably, to work.
The Book of Mormon treads a brilliantly fine line between the shocking and the warm-hearted. Beneath all the bad taste and the brilliantly offensive jokes lies a surprisingly tender story about faith, community and the human need to believe in something. Ferociously funny and oddly moving, it is one of the great West End entertainments of the modern era.
Why it’s worth the watch
The Book of Mormon is the ferociously funny, nine-Tony-winning musical that has kept the West End laughing since 2013.
- From the creators of South Park. Trey Parker and Matt Stone team up with Avenue Q composer Robert Lopez for a score that is as sharp as it is catchy.
- Songs you’ll be humming. Numbers like Hello!, Turn It Off and I Believe balance outrageous comedy with genuine musical-theatre craft.
- A tender heart beneath the shock. For all its bad-taste jokes, it tells a surprisingly warm story about faith, community and the need to believe in something.
- A proven long-runner. Nine Tony Awards on Broadway and more than a decade in London speak to just how well it lands night after night.
