Theatre review: The Messiah

Patrick Barlow’s spoof of Ben Hur featured a Nativity scene, and that’s now expanded to become the main focus of his latest, The Messiah (billed as a new play, although there’s clearly been versions of it around for over thirty years courtesy of Barlow’s National Theatre of Brent company.) And although there are new faces in the cast, the setup is familiar: Self-styled impresario Maurice (Hugh Dennis) has written and stars in his own adaptation of the Nativity, sharing all the roles with his unpredictable friend Ronald (John Marquez.) Musical accompaniment will be provided by opera singer Mrs Fflyte (Lesley Garrett,) who the two men are somewhat in awe of, and who will be joining them as soon as she can find the stage. Beginning with the Godhead (Dennis) asking how things are going on Earth (which he seems to have a somewhat romantic love for) and finding out they could be better, and moving on to the Annunciation of the Virgin Mary (Marquez,) who’s not best pleased about the whole thing because she’s only fourteen.

This is a tried and tested recipe of the idiot who thinks he’s a genius paired with the idiot who knows he’s an idiot, with much of the comedy coming from the way language is twisted, whether that be malapropisms or consistently mispronouncing words in an attempt to sound posh (“rough-hewn” causes them particular trouble this time around.)

It’s a recipe that hasn’t failed Barlow before and doesn’t here either, although it’s not quite as relentlessly funny as some of his past shows. This is partly down to the imbalance between the cast members, with the two men getting the vast majority of the comic business. Apart from a couple of occasions when she ends up stuck on stage alone because the others have stormed off in a strop, Garrett is mostly there to provide musical interludes (often while some slapstick goes on in the background.) She’s a good sport but it feels like a missed opportunity to give a female performer an actual chance to take part in the comedy, and with the relationship between Maurice and Ronald dominating the story some scenes outstay their welcome.

But there’s plenty of laugh-out-loud moments as well, including Maurice’s attempt to encourage audience participation, which he ditches when the audience actually participate and he doesn’t like it. The story is also constantly derailed by the writing focusing in great depth on insignificant details like Mary and Joseph’s relationship problems and the workings of the Roman census. This is a textbook Patrick Barlow comedy, to the point that if you’ve seen others it can feel over-familiar at times, but for the most part it’s a particular brand of silliness I continue to enjoy.

The Messiah by Patrick Barlow with additional material by John Ramm, Jude Kelly and Julian Hough is booking until the 5th of January at The Other Palace.

Running time: 2 hours including interval.

Photo credit: Robert Day.