nManchester Guardian, 23 June 1981, by Michael Billington
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Heralded by a sprinkling of glitter-dust and much laying on 
of microphones, *Godspell* is back in London at the Young 
Vic. For those who missed it the first time, this is your 
golden opportunity: you can miss it again. For this 
musicalised version of St. Matthew (songs and lyrics by 
Stephen Shwartz, conception by John-Michael Tebelak) still 
strikes me as a piece of vulgarised, show-biz, pseudo-
biblical kitsch.

My root objection is that it takes a great story and chops 
it into messy, semi-coherent fragments. I defy anyone who 
hasn't read the book to understand, from what they see here, 
the parables of the Prodigal Son or the Pharisee and the Tax 
Collector, since everything is so remorselessly over-
illustrated. Clad in the patched-jeans and floral-headband 
type of gear I associate with the sixties (though the show 
dates from 1971) the cast miss no chance to squash a good 
time.

"No man can serve God" (Jesus tells them to gasps of 
stupifaction) "and Money" ("Ah," they all cry having grasped 
the point). And, sure enough, at the mere mention of money, 
someone launches into a number from Cabaret. Multiply that 
by a hundred and you have the style of *Godspell*.

The assumption is that we would all be bored out of our 
skulls by the real story (a notion demolished by the McGowen 
rendering of St. Mark's Gospel). So we get vent-acts, white-
gloved mime, hat-and-cane numbers, dry ice, flashing lights, 
and a good deal of vamp-and-camp. It is all style and no 
substance, all glitter and no emotion (even the Crucifixion 
becomes simply a clever piece of staging on crossed black 
ladders), all gleaming dentures and no love. But at least 
director Stuart Mungall has dropped the clown-show metaphor 
of the original and made it look like a period Flower Power 
romp.

And in a busy cast the most notable figures are Timothy 
Whitnall as a white-suited Jesus, Trudie Goodwin as a blithe 
songstress, and a robust lady (hard to identify from the 
hymn-sheet) who at one point clasped me to her bosom and 
announced, "I hear you've a very handy pencil." That was the 
one good thing that happened to me all evening.



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