Jeezus! Review. A Queer Musical About Faith, Desire and the Man on the Cross

There is a crash of thunder as the lights go down. God is watching. He is not pleased.

Lima, Peru. The 1990s. A woman called Maria strikes a deal with the Lord of Miracles, an ancient mural painting of a god that is not quite white. Diamonds in exchange for a child. Nine months later they name the boy Jesús. His father Lieutenant José, a man of Fujimori's military dictatorship, could not be more proud. His mother wears a purple cloak every day for the rest of her life. Jesús sings in the choir, lights the candles, and has been selected as altar boy for his first communion. He is a very good Catholic boy. He is also, it turns out, in love with the man on the cross.

"Should I be repenting for loving him or for not loving him enough?"

Jeezus! from migrant-led company Alpaqa covers Jesús's sexual awakening across twelve episodic chapters, from a blank VHS tape in a cousin's Orlando bedroom to a confession booth that stops the room cold. "Should I be repenting for loving him or for not loving him enough?" The laugh it gets is enormous. So is the silence after. This is a show that has been worked and reworked until it gleams, and it arrives in London as its fully realised self, UNTAPPED Award and Edinburgh five stars already behind it, but needing neither.

Sergio Antonio Maggiolo, who also wrote the book, and Guido Garcia Lueches are stunning together. Precise, well rehearsed and completely in sync, the kind of double act that makes two people feel like twenty. Guido moves between a sleazy priest, a devoted mother and Jesus Christ himself with a fluency that makes the range feel effortless rather than showy. Tom Cagnoni completes the trio from the back of the stage, a one man orchestra who steps into the action at precisely the right moments with a comic timing the audience greet like a third lead. Between them they build something specific and alive. This is what happens when a show has been lived in, fought for and truly believed in.

"A crucifix with an electronic Jesus that resurrects when you press the button"

The set is sparse. At first that feels like a limitation. It stops feeling like one quickly. Soft yellow and red spotlights shift the emotional temperature of each scene with quiet precision, and Laura Killeen's direction keeps the energy moving without letting the chaos swallow the story underneath it. Where costumes are concerned, more variation would have been welcome. Given how much the show asks of its two leads physically and comedically, a stronger visual shift between characters would have added another layer. It is the one place where the production could give more.

Yes, there are over the top sexualised jokes. Yes, some of the physical comedy will make certain audience members shift in their seats. For anyone with strong religious convictions this is not an easy watch and the show does not pretend otherwise. But nobody walking through that door on press night was expecting a quiet evening of restraint. Not for the easily offended. Absolutely for everyone else. The audience interaction is perfectly judged, organic, embedded, never forced. The room did not stop laughing. One sharp line followed another, campy then cutting then unexpectedly deep, and the audience met every single one.

"They settled down in the holiest place of all. South London."

Tom Cagnoni's sound design and live musicianship carry the show into a world entirely its own. From church hymns to cumbia to full rock eruption the score moves with Jesús's emotional state and never lets the energy drop. There are moments where the show throws so much at once that quieter emotional beats get buried before they can land, and a little more stillness in places would let them. But that is a small complaint against a production that knows exactly what it is doing and does it with complete conviction.

At the close, when Jesús faces the congregation, puts on the earrings, and offers a rewritten Lord's Prayer, in the name of my Father, and of my Mother, and my Holy Self, accept temptation, fight evil, for this miracle is ours, only until we die, you feel exactly what it has been building toward all along. Funny, filthy, surprisingly moving. The kind of theatre that makes you wonder why everything else is so timid.

Jeezus! runs at New Diorama Theatre until 9 May 2026.

Tickets: https://newdiorama.com/whats-on/jeezus

Content warning: sexual content, strong language including homophobic language. Age guidance 16+.

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