The Father, The Daughter & The Holy Devil

Kilburn Community Hall
Fri 23 March
season closed


With Easter just scant weeks away, what better time for the slaughter of a few sacred cows? (That's another religion, but you get the idea.) This is the idea behind 'The Father, The Daughter & The Holy Devil', a satire on religion and all the things a good priest really shouldn't get up to. I'll admit right off the bat that I'm a practicing Christian, and as such I enjoy a satire on the faithful even more than the next man. So don't think I'm getting defensive when I tell you this one isn't very good.

The main character is a priest of the Church Of Latter Day Drunkards (I hope I don't have to tell you it's a fictional denomination). While he is very committed to hectoring his congregation to give to the collection and join him in an updated version of The Lord's Prayer, he has his own weaknesses, mostly to do with girls in school uniforms and his energetic assistant nun. If this kind of behaviour keeps up, he's due for a fall. Sounds like a pretty good set-up, right?

Unfortunately, not much is done with the components. There are a lot of very obvious jokes about priests of this nature, several of which are repeated. Moreover, for a comedy that centres on the desires of the flesh, it doesn't manage to deliver much sauciness. There's a hint at some attempted depth with a suicide scene early on, but that goes nowhere, and the drama, such as it is, gets wrapped up courtesy of a very unsatisfying plot device.

Satire's not an easy art form to pull off, even with such fertile material as organised religion. Even so, it's a shame this doesn't make the grade.

Henry Nicholls