Broadway hit The Book Of Mormon has cemented its cross-Atlantic success with the presentation of 2014’s MasterCard Best New Musical Award at the Olivier Awards with MasterCard.
Brought to the West End by the hit-creating UK producer Sonia Friedman last February, South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s hilarious hit arrived in London with the weight of nine Tony Awards on its shoulders and tales of queues around the block at its Broadway home.
When the production opened at the Prince of Wales Theatre it did not disappoint, with its American stars Gavin Creel and Jared Gertner telling Official London Theatre at a recent Olivier Awards event that any worries they had about British audiences not getting on board with its outrageously offensive and often shockingly rude humour disappeared within minutes of their first performance.
Talking about the show’s success at tonight’s ceremony, Gertner said: “It feels amazing. [An Olivier Award] is the big one and it feels so great that London embraced us.”
While Parker and Stone’s famously edgy humour may be what The Book Of Mormon has become famous for, the musical’s success is possibly equally as indebted to its heartwarming story and traditional staging.
The production has earned plaudits not just for its wit, but for its many musical theatre in-jokes, tightly performed inventive choreography by Casey Nicholaw, and Stone, Parker and Robert Lopez’s incredible songs that range from the surreal Spooky Mormon Hell Dream to the soaring I Believe.
The Book Of Mormon faced stiff competition tonight from fellow Broadway exports Once and The Scottsboro Boys, as well as the homegrown family hit Charlie And The Chocolate Factory.