Review: JEEZUS! at New Diorama

A show which was a big hit at the Edinburgh Fringe and includes songs like Papi Issues, Sin, Sin, Sin, Sin, Wholly Holy Holey and Punish Me, was always likely to rock a gay spin on Catholic guilt, mixed as it is with dark humour and a South American military coup.

The production has been created primarily through a team effort involving Peruvian Sergio Antonio Maggiolo and Uruguayan Guido Garcia Lueches, with contributions from Laura Killeen and Tom Cagnoni. The end result is fast-paced (69 minutes straight through), kitsch, ridiculous and often amusing. Sergio and Guido parade and flaunt themselves in close proximity to audience members, revelling in every opportunity to break the fourth wall, poke fun at the contradictions inherent in devout Catholic observance and in so doing, create those embarrassing moments so beloved of camp cabaret formats.

The story is relatively thin on detail and complexity — the family situation is depicted using broad brushstrokes to paint a doting sympathetic mother and an uber-hetero father — and depends instead on audience recognition of gay sexual tropes and suppressions. When exposed in a public setting, these result in collective amusement at a character’s naïveté, and whoops of delight when they embrace sexual vulgarity due to a build-up of adolescent hormones.

Underpinning the levity however is very real, almost subversive intent. Using comedy to deliver political commentary and criticism is hardly new, but here the guys clearly feel the gravity of Peru’s current political situation. Having grown up in the era of Alberto Fujimori’s decade of right-wing suppression and propaganda (which was used to obliterate the far left guerrilla group Shining Path at the expense of thousands of innocent civilians caught in the cross-fire), 2026’s imminent elections look set to return Keiko Fujimori daughter of the former President in June’s run-off. Now living in South London, the primary creators must feel a million miles from Lima, but caring about one’s roots and tortured history, is never easy to let go of. Here, on a set of stained glass windows and archways adorned with shiny, colourful dildos and fetishistic accoutrement they lay bare the national identity borne of religious adherence by including occasional projected images of Christian festivals which bring believers onto the streets in their tens of thousands.

JEEZUS! which continues at New Diorama in Euston until 9th May, reminds us that in an uncertain world filled with social and political turbulence, sometimes it helps to tap zany frivolousness as an antidote to the gloom.