God Only Knows

Synopsis

Contentedly full of good Italian food and drowsy with wine, four holidaymakers are relaxing on the terrace of a villa in Tuscany. Suddenly, out of the evening shadows, there appears a fugitive - a man who claims to possess long-hidden knowledge that is both momentous and dangerous - an enigma involving the Vatican's Secretary Archieve, an Italian dealer in antiquities, and a Jewish preacher known as Yeshua Ben Pantera. And the answer to this riddle.....?

Our Review:

21 March 2001

God only knows what God Only Knows is doing in the West End. This new play by Hugh Whitemore toured the regions earlier in the year, and looked like mercifully expiring there. But it's suddenly been resurrected for a new life.

Whitemore is another senior English dramatist who has fallen out of favour, luck, or both lately, and, like Simon Gray (whose fortunes have recently been restored with the fine Japes at the Haymarket), has seen his immediately prior work to this fail to reach the West End.

In Whitemore's case, however, his last one - Disposing of the Body, seen at Hampstead Theatre - was far superior in every way to this verbose and unconvincingly executed theological thriller. Such things don't come along every day - thank God. If there is a God, that is... which is the rhetorical, and inevitably unanswered, question that lingers over and permeates the play.

The evening peace of a Tuscany holiday of...

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Latest User Review

USER: Whatsonstage.com - 6 April 2001:

Well, i enjoyed it. Anyting that brigns Derek Jacobi back into the West End has got to be a good thing. More please!...

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