What’s it all about?
And lo, a voice boomed out from a pillar of fire and did not say “Ooh, this is a bit burny”, but rather commanded playwright and director Gary Sinyor to write a play quite like The Life Of Brian, but with the story of Moses. And he did.
Who’s in it?
Greg Barnett plays the titular Hebrew slave whose luck was enjoying a boating holiday elsewhere on the day he floated helplessly down the Nile. Tossed back into the river when a better catch comes along, he grows into a rabble-rousing God-denying would-be revolutionary while Moses is just a fish out of water at the Egyptian palace.
Thomas Nelstrop wears a beard well, or not as the case may be, as the saviour of Israel, while Joe Morrow is more deliciously camp than a gingerbread tent as whip-wielding Egyptian solider Feripoti.
What should I look out for?
Gags as ridiculous and silly as a plague of rubber frogs…
In a nutshell?
More Biblical daftness than a plague of tap-dancing locusts.
What’s being said on Twitter?
Laughed all the way through the brilliant, hilarious, irreverent #NotMoses by @GarySinyor last night! @notmosesonstage @ArtsTheatreLDN
— Pauline Brown (@PaulineBrown01) March 13, 2016
#notmoses Brilliant show. Such is what makes #London s soirees unforgettable ????
— Tahani Alghureiby (@TahaniAlgureiby) March 14, 2016
Will I like it?
Well, that very much depends on how you like your humour. Broad silliness is the order of the day here; think questionably successful plagues, mispronunciation of meat to play with names of religions and songs sung about a pharaoh who’s lost his legs in a nasty crocodile-based accident – “Head, shoulders, nothing and nothing…”
If that tickles your funny bone in a Biblical way, part the crowds like a certain red sea and get thyself to the Arts Theatre.
NotMoses plays at the Arts Theatre until 14 May. You can book tickets through the theatre’s website.