WITH Darth Vader, famine, Hitler and AIDS among the subject matter, it's not your regular feelgood musical.

We are treated to brilliant musical numbers, clever writing, a show with a big heart and an unlikely hero, it's just not presented in quite the same way as others.

Created by the brilliant minds behind South Park and with plenty of controversy caused and groups offended during its Broadway and West End runs, there is an expectation that this is one musical comedy which will push the boundaries.

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I hadn't quite expected the flurry of swearing or political incorrectness. Or to laugh as much as I did on its first UK tour outing in Southampton.

It's not just the Mormon religion which feels the force of the satire. Christians, Jews, homosexuals, Africans and Americans also take the brunt of it.

In fact no one escapes the jokes, from Bono to Mickey Mouse and from Nigel Farage to Nelson Mandela.

A mismatched pair of Mormon missionaries leave behind the utopia of America to spread the good word in rural Uganda and attempt to convert villagers and the resident warlord adorned with a Manchester United scarf to their cause.

Against all odds, it works, mainly thanks to the inclusion into the good book of hobbits and the Starship Enterprise, and all's well that ends well. There's little more to it than that.

This is an all-singing, all-dancing, riotously funny look at the absurdities of life, which is never mean in the way it pokes fun at religion, race or sexuality and pretty much everything else.

It made me gasp, it made me whoop and it made me laugh out loud. I even left with a host of superb sweary songs in my head.

It's not for the easily offended, but for me The Book of Mormon is unpredictable and unmissable.

  • The Book of Mormon runs until Saturday March 5. Tickets from mayflower.org.uk or 023 8071 1811.