STILL IN THE HABIT OF POKING FUN AT NUNS
Those Sister Act singers sure know how to raise the roof… but some things NEVER change
In cinema and theatreland, there’s a general belief that nuns are intrinsically funny. They dress funny, talk funny, live weird lives, have no idea what the real world is like, shudder at the very mention of evil and bless themselves a lot.
Mother Superior is always a strict disciplinarian who disapproves of everything but is warm-hearted underneath. And if you want real fun, you get some villainous characters who disguise themselves as nuns and hide in a convent.
Sister Act aims to have it both ways: all the fun, farce and irreverence, along with serving of some deadly serious stuff about sadness, people who feel lost and a dash of philosophy about the meaning of true love.
The two aspects don’t always sit comfortably but the overall effect is some feel-good dramatics with roof-raising music.
The bad guy (Curtis) is a murderous villain but his cronies are a comedy trio who could double as the Three Stooges.
The girl on the run here is Deloris (played with gusto by Landi Oshinowo), an ambitious singer, who shows that she has drama, talent and sex combined.
And when she witnesses a killing by nasty boyfriend boss Curtis, she’s hidden in a convent by a good cop, while Mother Superior (the talented Ruth Jones of Gavin & Stacey fame), believes that ‘outside these walls’ there’s no right ‘just wrong and wronger’ and sin. Naturally Deloris passes as a nun, though she hasn’t a clue about religion, doesn’t like being cooped up and her behaviour makes her stand out like Usain Bolt in a three-legged race.
Possibly the funniest incident in the show is when Deloris, who has turned the convent into a dazzling disco, admits she’s not a nun and the others are shocked.
But the saving grace in the show is the music, especially for those who love a hot gospelling style of rock and disco belted out fortissimo, except when it takes a break to go introverted about some lost soul with psychological problems.
The general style is for songs that test singers with high velocity top notes and the singing really is top class.
Deloris quickly solves one problem. These nuns sing as a choir who shriek and squawk until Deloris takes them on and soon has them warbling like a heavenly chorus and giving that old-time religion the boost of arm-waving and body-weaving that has crowds packing into Mass, just when the convent needs every penny it can get to save its church from being turned into an antique emporium.
The news spreads so fast that the Pope signs them up to perform in Rome. And the local priest swivels with the best as the money flows in.
Amid all this hallelujah jamboree, local police boss Steady Eddie
‘Naturally, Deloris passes as a nun, although she hasn’t a clue about religion’
‘The lyrics can be witty, sharp… and uncomfortably irreverent’
(Alfie Parker), who’s protecting Deloris, is a sad sack but a good egg, who wants to be the guy who catches the eyes of women who go for other men.
The songs have a persistent kind of driving repetitive beat with music by Alan Menken and lyrics by Glenn Slater that can be witty, sharp and uncomfortably irreverent. The show edges away from the forced humour in the second half with Mother Superior lamenting her plight in I Haven’t Got A Prayer, and Sister Robert (Eloise Runnette) being given a lot of mileage to lament the life she’s never led outside.
The serious conclusion sees the return of bad-guy Curtis (Ian Gareth-Jones) unearthing Deloris’s deception and threatening her life, leading to her exit from the convent.
At which point, all the nuns do a kind of I Am Spartacus routine and the Sunday Morning Fever atmosphere is turned into some preachy philosophising about spreading the love around, before rounding off with a rousing finale.