Musicals!

Gotcha! Just one musical - The Book of Mormon.

I shall sum up my review thusly -- meh.

I shall put some blame on hype. Some more on the touring cast and sound guy being unable to spell enunciation, let alone pronounce it clearly enough for me to understand it.

But most of it goes on the show. An uneven, poorly-connected tale that relies on occasional shock value to create the illusion that you just saw a great show.

I didn't. I saw an alright show. Adequate. Not worth the $130 for a good seat in the 1st balcony.

The songs dragged on, the jokes were repetitive, and the story was edited to the point of being barely coherent. Which is a shame, because the underlying tale had a lot going for it. False belief, seeking meaning, logical fallacies in religious texts, opening one's mind, the selfish nature of evangelism, the core purpose of helping people, etc, are all messages the world could use exposure to.

Yes, there were some funny spots. There were even a few hilarious ones. There was clever use of jokes to misdirect for another, unexpected joke. There was the trademark Parker/Stone shock humour that was great the few times they were actually able to use it. I love irreverent humour, and they did nail it occasionally.

But it was all too little and was overcome by the larger, mediocre whole. There was maybe 30 minutes of funny vs 60 minutes of "is this song still going on?"

Give me Spamalot or Evil Dead: The Musical any day. They may not have anything under the surface, but they were hilarious and entertaining. I have both their original cast recordings on my shelf. In fact, I left the theatre last night singing Evil Dead songs, because the melodies shared so much with what I'd just seen. I didn't buy the Book of Mormon CD. 12 hours later I barely remember a single song.

Although "Hasa Diga Eebowai" was pretty good.