The Stage

The Making of Moo

Published Monday 16 November 2009 at 12:15 by John Thaxter

A colonial do-gooder builds a dam to help the natives, but ends up inadvertently drowning their river god Ega. Chastened by the unrest this causes, he creates a new deity he calls Moo, with an iconography based on a blend of Christianity and human sacrifice, helped by his wife and his assistant, who eventually become high priests.

Philip York (Frederick Compton), Ben Onwukwe (William) and Amanda Royle (Elizabeth Compton) in The Making Of Moo at the Orange Tree Theatre Photo: Tristram Kenton

Back in 1957, this satire by Nigel Dennis earned him a critical onslaught for blasphemy. But despite the press controversy, it was not a great success at the Royal Court box office and this is its first London revival.

Sam Walters’ Orange Tree production is in part fuelled by his anger at having had religion thrust upon him at boarding school and he makes a strong case for restaging the piece, with an excellent cast and some fine settings by Tim Meacock and Robyn Wilson. But 52 years after its premiere, blasphemy is no longer enough to set the stage alight.

The play lacks the gleeful wit that Bernard Shaw could have brought to its theme and the characters are thinly drawn. But if this Richmond revival is unlikely to give fundamentalists pause for thought, it still serves as a warning about the dangerous lure of cults and the forward march of creationism in North America.

The production sparks some seriously splendid performances, notably from Ben Onwukwe as a loyal servant turned archbishop, Philip York as the well-intentioned but pompous colonial and Duncan Wisbey as his secretary with a fund of religious insights.

Most convincingly, Amanda Royle plays the wife, whom we suspect is enjoying the fun rather than a Damascene conversion to Moo, and who lets her blonde hair down to stunning effect.