Review: HOLY SH*T, Riverside Studios
Review: HOLY SH*T, Riverside Studios
A great black comedy and a good antidote to saccharine Christmas productions.
St Bernard’s Church is struggling, nay, it’s falling apart. The spire is about to break, the roof is leaking and the congregation consists of four people closer in age to death than life. When Father Charlie joins Father George as his co-priest, the two find a new ingenious way of raising the funds: certain professor Jones is willing to pay exorbitant amounts for fresh and not-so-fresh bodies… So the priests get digging.
The humour was right up my street although I do think that a whole lot of it might have appealed mainly to people who spend a fair bit of time at church. Writing by Jack Fairhurst is overall very witty and clever, and energetic enough to counterpoint the slightly monotonous direction by Rosa Higgs. The general idea that every character is just a tiny bit weird: the policewoman – childish, the bishop – prideful, the surgeon – crazy, is fascinating and works really well. It’s all slightly absurd and grotesque, especially given the rather odd collection of accents from Ireland via London to the United States – and it is a shame that direction seems to keep the tempo down. Very simple blackouts in between scenes and the ultra-simple set – buckets on one side to symbolise the church with a leaking roof and a fresh grave on the other – don’t really do excellent writing and great acting justice. Especially Rafael Aptroot is marvelous as Father George who seemingly tries to hide the darker aspects of his nature under a sanctimonious facade.
There are deeper questions hidden under farcical surface – questions of corruption and betrayal of one’s ideal, and dominantly, of losing faith and keeping appearances. These could have been explored in much more depth, as they’re basically only hinted at by the play’s end. Jack Fairhurst appears to have a very firm grasp on various theological nuances – the more reasons to dig deeper (pun intended).
But overall – a great black comedy and a good antidote to saccharine Christmas productions.
