The most over-hyped show on God's earth:

On the basis, presumably, that if you can’t beat them, join them, elders from the Mormon church have paid for three full-page ads in the programme for the new hit West End show The Book Of Mormon.
Which is somewhat surprising, considering that from start to finish the bad-taste musical mercilessly lampoons the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, whose devotees famously include Donny Osmond.
Clearly, they have taken the ‘any publicity is good publicity’ route and hitched their wagon to this unstoppable juggernaut.

 

The Book of Mormon has been lauded by most critics. Pictured in white shirts is Gavin Creel (centre) and Jared Gertner (back right)

The crude show has broken box office records in the West End

Tickets for the foul-mouthed show, which makes fun of raping babies and female genital mutilation, are like gold dust.
Already, it has broken West End box office records, taking more than £2 million in advance bookings in a single day, following its official opening at the end of last month. The sales record was broken after producers released a further 150,000 tickets.
Even so, it is now almost impossible to find a spare seat through official channels until July. Meanwhile, unofficial websites are selling a pair of tickets for later this month for a staggering £750.
Already, the run has been extended until January and the London PR agency hired by the show’s American producers, let slip to me this week they are looking to  emulate another West End hit, We Will Rock You, which has been running for 11 years.
And the touts are not the only ones cashing in. The Prince of Wales theatre, where The Book of Mormon is showing, has just put up its prices because of the high demand — with the best seats going for £72.50.
At the same time, highbrow critics are  falling over themselves to find ever more fawning superlatives for the musical, which has won nine Tony Awards on Broadway.
One hyperventilating female reviewer from the Guardian wrote: ‘It’s simply a work of genius, so brilliantly conceived and executed that it makes astonishingly savage and sophisticated satire into joyous, hilarious, literally all-singing, all-dancing fun and glamour.
And the Observer’s critic trilled that it is: ‘The most cryingly good night out to have come along in years.’
Not everyone agrees, however. The Mail’s Quentin Letts described the show, which follows two clean-cut Mormon missionaries sent to poverty-stricken Uganda, as ‘cowardly, coarse and cynical’.

And Libby Purves in The Times wrote: ‘Beneath its jollity, [Mormon] is morally null and — without seeming to notice it — pretty racist.’
One undeniable thing is that The Book of Mormon — written by the American creators of equally controversial adult television cartoon South Park — is fast becoming the most hyped show in theatre history.
Behind its success on both sides of the Atlantic is a multi-million- dollar publicity and marketing campaign on a scale not normally seen beyond the realms of a Hollywood blockbuster movie.
Industry sources in America — where there is a touring version of the show, plus long-standing productions in New York and Chicago — say producers have spent an unprecedented $1 million (£650,000) marketing the show in London alone.
As well as a flurry of double-page national newspaper adverts featuring glowing reviews, there is a high-profile Facebook and Twitter campaign to get the message out.

 

Book Of Mormon creators Matt Stone (left) and Trey Parker at last year's BAFTA awards in California

And on suburban railway stations around the London area a poster campaign has been launched featuring the gushing tweets of what purport to be ordinary members of the public who have seen the show.
Top London theatre marketing firm Dewynters has been brought in with PR consultancy The Corner Shop to oversee the strategy.
The theatre is also holding a daily lottery, where 21 ‘lucky’ punters, who pay £20, have their names drawn from a tombola to win a ticket for that night’s show.
Mike Paul, one of the most high-profile PR men in New York, where The Book Of Mormon is about to enter its third year on Broadway, told me: ‘The marketing campaign has been brilliant. The producers have treated this show in the way Hollywood sells its biggest movies, and thrown millions of dollars at it. What they are saying to the public is that this show is sold out for months. Therefore it must be great.
‘Theatre-goers might know absolutely nothing about the material, but they think to themselves, “I don’t want to be the only person I know who is not going to see this show.” ’
Those who do manage to get a ticket should be ready for blasphemy and profanity by the bucketload.
The story follows two naive young Utah Mormons, Elders Price and Cunningham, played by Gavin Creel and Jared Gertner, who travel to an Aids-ridden African village to  convert the locals.
Subtle it is not. One song, a spoof of the ditty Hakuna Matata, from Disney’s The Lion King, has the natives belting out an F-word strewn two-fingered salute to God which includes lines such as, ‘**** you, God’ and ‘**** you in the ****.’
Elsewhere, there is a blood-drinking warlord who believes in female circumcision and that raping babies can cure Aids. Later one of the Mormon evangelists persuades the locals the disease can, in fact, be eradicated by indulging in bestiality.

 

The Prince of Wales Theatre has put up its prices because of the high demand for seats

As one of the first to see the show in London, I can attest it is, indeed, vile, offensive and potty-mouthed. Which might be forgivable were it not also puerile, crass and — worst of all — not very funny.

 

But it must be conceded that on the evidence of the hysterical reaction of the audience at the preview I attended, I am in the minority.
It all depends on your definition of high comedy. I found it surreal sitting stony-faced while those around me dissolved into paroxysms of laughter over an African — who looked like he was straight out of Central Casting — shouting over and over: ‘I have maggots in my scrotum’.
Yet, already there has started a rather sinister online campaign against anyone who doesn’t fall over themselves to praise the show.
Recently, the Guardian’s Michael Billington, who wrote a mildly flattering review, complained: ‘Is there something a bit bullying about Book Of Mormon aficionados? Can’t one be sceptical about a Broadway hit without being a snob?
Nonetheless, a fightback of sorts has begun. In the U.S., the travel website Tripadvisor is full of theatre-goers appalled by the near-the-knuckle nature of the production. Meanwhile, a Stateside Facebook page entitled, The Book Of Mormon Show Sucks, has sprung up.
But the truth is that anyone who has ever watched South Park couldn’t complain that they did not know they were letting themselves in for a no-holds-barred gross-fest  simply by buying a ticket.
Behind the musical are writers Trey Parker, 43, and Matt Stone, 41, who created South Park in 1997. They have become vastly rich on the back of the cartoon series and now The Book Of Mormon. Each man is reported to have amassed a fortune of around £200 million.
And they are expanding their powerful business empire. In January they signed a deal with multi- millionaire former Goldman Sachs financier Joseph Ravitch to launch their own Hollywood film production company, Important Studios.
They plan to rival Steven Spielberg’s DreamWorks and Lucasfilm, makers of Indiana Jones and Star Wars.
Even before the London opening, The Book of Mormon was a massive money-spinner. With the West End show added to three productions in the States, Parker, Stone and fellow producer Scott Rudin are raking in just over £4 million a week.

Matt Stone and Trey Parker already had great success with their near the knuckle humour in South Park

The duo made their name with South Park, which follows the fortunes of a gang of schoolboys in a fictional Colorado backwater, and purposely set out to shatter virtually every remaining television taboo.
Among South Park’s list of targets are the disabled, Jews, gays, Catholics, Scientologists and the rich and famous. Controversial storylines includes one from 2007 which showed a cartoon of the Queen blowing her brains out after a failed attempt to invade America.
Another episode showed  Indiana Jones actor Harrison Ford being raped several times by Steven Spielberg and George Lucas.
But the writers’ self-styled reputation for taking on powerful vested interests was dealt an embarrassing blow two years ago, before an episode which featured an image of the prophet Muhammad.

 

A little known New York-based Islamic website, called Revolution Muslim, warned that the show’s two creators faced being murdered if the depiction went ahead.
Despite the radical group having no more than ten official members, the South Park producers caved  in. The images of Muhammad  were covered by a ‘censored’ sign and references to him were bleeped out.
The episode still featured a cartoon of Buddha snorting cocaine and Jesus downloading internet porn.
Likewise, the  Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is clearly an easier target than radical Islam.
Even so, producers were so frightened of reprisals they insisted on strict security at the London theatre rehearsals of the musical, with guests having to sign in and mail strictly checked for suspect devices.
As it turned out, the good-natured Mormons decided to see the funny side of theatre’s crudest and most over-hyped show of all time.
But how long will it be before audiences who have paid a small fortune to see it start to feel it is a case of the emperor’s new clothes?