Review by Steve Bennett

When the teams behind The Simpsons and Family Guy have presented similar stage shows, they’ve been based around live script read-throughs, delighting fans who can see familiar voices coming out of unfamiliar faces.

But Matt Stone and Trey Parker take a different tack. In this sizeable show, there’s barely half a dozen words in character. It’s a very large omission.

What we have instead is a show of two components: partly a great celebration of some of the music in the show, and partly a staged Q&A covering the history of South Park.

It seems Matt and Trey could be frustrated musicians, with this their big chance to play in a bad in front of a few hundred people. And excellent stuff it is to, right from the opening number – a magnificent, epic, swooping ballad, with a tender, beautiful melody, and the most filthy lyrics. As anyone who’s seen Jerry Springer The Opera will know, such a juxtaposition is potent.

There’s a wide range of music here, from the power rock of America – Fuck Yeah to singalong anthems with a message. Even if that message is that Kyle’s mom is a big fat fucking bitch.

It’s hugely entertaining, and shows that the duo are only a couple of steps away from having a fully fledged South Park Musical, should they decide to do one. It doesn’t take a great leap of imagination to envisage a Broadway spectacular with 3D versions of Stan, Kyle and Cartman with giant papier mache heads. Think The Lion King, with a much smaller budget.

After the opening song, Matt and Trey introduce a showreel of some of the many, many times they have mocked Canada on air. The Montreal audience, naturally, love being the butt of the joke, and it’s an effective way of exploiting the live situation.

Between musical segments, the pair are interviewed by comedian Paul Provenza, the director of The Aristocrats movie and an unabshed South Park superfan. These sections are a bit more scattergun, with Provenza’s star-struck enthusiasm for his subjects costing the discussion some focus and direction.

There are a few revelations for the casual fans – that school counsellor Mr Mackey was based on Trey’s own school counsellor, Mr Lackey, for instance – as well as the retelling of some of well-documented controversies, such as the run-ins with Scientology and the Comedy Central bigwigs over depicting a cartoon Mohammed. But it didn’t offer much of a new perspective.

The indulgent chat might have made for a jolly enough radio interview, where you don’t have to pay £30 a ticket, but it could have been so much more for a live audience. Or dropped altogether in favour of an episode read-through. It’s what the fans would have wanted.

Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Montreal, July 2008

Review date: 1 Jan 2008
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett