The Making of Moo

When Nigel Dennis's scornful religious satire debuted at the Royal Court in 1957, it caused a bit of a stir. Billed as a 'history of religion in three acts' it told the story of a colonial engineer who decides to replace the African river god he accidentally killed while building a dam with a new one, based on the Highway Code. Audiences were delighted and shocked; it even made a young Michael Billington (now Guardian theatre critic) headline news when his Oxford tutor resigned in protest against his production.

Now, the winds of time expose its philosophical and dramatic failings mercilessly. The how-to create-your-own-religion element is well-observed, even if it soon runs out of steam, but Dennis's colonial-era disdain for his non-white characters, the servants and savages who either behave like animals or act like children, is hard to stomach. The debate over religion is more relevant than ever, but Dennis's fiercely atheist position is as crude as the dogmatism he attacks. There's more to religion than murder and pagentry just as there's more to atheism than soundbites printed on buses. Some may find laughs in this dusty museum piece but I be damned if you find enlightenment.