This play comes with an age restriction, with adult themes and language, and works very hard to insult several religions and sensibilities, with some success! Written by Hallam Woolfrey and directed by Bevan Thomas, who both also act in the play, it’s subtitled “An intelligent comedy for naughty Catholics.”

It certainly explores some key elements of Catholic belief, set in Hell’s living room where Satan (dubbed Lucy by his guests) has just done some renovations. Phil Dalziel is well cast in this role as an irritated know all who takes pains to point out in direct address to the audience (who are, he informs us, in Purgatory)  that he and God – or Goddy – are in fact good friends. After all, God made him in order to demonstrate the opposite of good – how else would humans know about such things?

The living room has a bar, an office area and a few lazy boys and couches and mysterious stalagmites and stalactites, giving cave references to the décor. There are fans placed around to remind us of the heat, as well.  So the play switches between diatribes from the devil and interruptions from an A-list of faith leaders and Biblical figures.

There’s Jezebel, the Whore of Babylon, who keeps being called out to service customers in Hell, wearing her short leather skirt, red bustier and whip, but stays around long enough to lower the tone. Jessica Little convinces in this role with languid ease. Next comes Elymas Bar, a false prophet, dressed and played with obvious enjoyment as an American mid-west hustler by Hallam Woolfrey, the play’s author, in checked suit and tie. He does double service as bar tender and guest. 

The biggest surprises are God, or Goddy, played by Bevan Thomas as an East London gangster, in singlet and shorts, shaved head and gold necklace, his sulky son JC in board shorts and shirt, portrayed by Matt Silvester as a picture of arrested development, and the Virgin Mary, played as a sweet young hippie by Tosca Christie.  They are a classic nuclear family, exhibiting all the usual frustrations of poor communication and co-dependency.  Mary even presses Goddy to tell her why he was so unkind to Joseph and he implies he wanted to get rid of the competition.

God’s appearances on the lazy boy in Hell are announced by darkness and flashes of lightning and he has fun with the commands – “Let there be light” and “Let there be darkness” – so that the set is kept in the dark for quite a long time in the middle of the play.

In a moment of homage to Charlie Hebdo perhaps, a lost Arab lurches in looking hopefully at the Virgin Mary for his reward in heaven, and is sent maliciously by Lucy/ Satan on his way down the corridor to the room where the rapists and nasty men are kept. A graphic discussion ensues of whether a rapist can be a virgin in certain sexual practices such as sodomy, while an expert in others.

In anarchic style, to add to Lucy/Satan’s tetchiness, these girls and boys of the Playboy Mansion decide to throw him a house renovation party, which happens behind curtains, invisible to the audience, but loud and clear over the sound system – for a long time!

Despite all the anti-narrative devices and offensive portrayals of holy and unholy figures, this production entertains for its use of surprise and the committed energy of the cast, so that the audience is kept either gasping or laughing nervously out loud on many occasions!   An uneven but diverting show.

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