This is not a prospect faced with every day: a musical journey through the history of the Papacy. Nonetheless, the audience of ‘Go To The Devil and Shake Yourself’ is treated to this very feast of facts and music. However for all its uniqueness, its musical aptitude and pedestrian lyrics do not quite justify its sixty-minute length.
Joe Murphy is clearly mightily impassioned by the topic of Papal history. He is constantly rewarding us with juicy facts and anecdotes but never in enough detail to entertain. Here and there we hear the words ‘incest’ and ‘bestiality’ bandied about, but the meat of these immoral historical figures is just left to be recounted in rhyming couplets instead of in songs. Only the more significant Popes get entire songs devoted to them. Where other historical productions take these few gems of juicy sordid behaviour and make fantastic productions out of them, this feels absent in Murphy’s songs, which are sometimes not only simplistic but even become banal.
Murphy’s assistant, who plays Melodica and sings, is a treat to watch and this aspect is worth a visit in itself. The show is extremely educational about the Popes of the past. However, Murphy was at his best in the more abstract songs in the setlist. The titular number and the encore took religious ideas and made interesting songs out of them, instead of registers of assorted Catholic leaders throughout the years. Even though the bar is exposed to the restaurant next door and the venue is therefore never quiet, it is most importantly a free show. Who knows, you might learn something.
