As St Paul might have said in his text message to the Corinthians: "Prepare ye the way of the Lord, for when the dude gets here I want you to say 'Yo!' " Thirty years ago, Godspell was about a group of ragamuffins getting together to improvise the Bible with anything that came to hand. These days most things that come to hand have a battery inside them, so Scott Schwartz's production delivers the gospel via mobile phones, laptops and streaming video.
Schwartz is better qualified than most to give Godspell an upgrade: he is the son of Stephen Schwartz, the show's composer and lyricist. But though technology has advanced in the intervening years, the original spirit has remained. Godspell still feels like an evangelical service in which everyone is expected to put their hands in the air and whoop.
For the most part, it bears up reasonably well. The songs remain fresh and addictive in their remixed arrangements. The relaxed, ensemble style of playing makes the apostles seem like a cool bunch of guys. The problem rests with the book. Who wrote this stuff - Matthew, Mark, Luke and John? Fire the lot.
What the high-tech staging can never quite disguise is that Godspell is fundamentally an interminable sequence of parables, each played out in the style of a different drama-school improvisation exercise. The language of the authorised version sounds bizarrely leaden in this context. Great scripture, terrible script.
Nor are there many theatrical experiences more uncomfortable than the feeling that you are being preached at. Godspell is a two-hour sermon with sound and lights - so it helps that Gareth John Owen's sound and Hugh Vanstone's lights are extremely impressive. At least you can settle back and enjoy the technology.
There are some great voices on display, too. Neighbours star Daniel MacPherson and Jonathan Wilkes alternate the roles of Jesus and Judas throughout the run; here, MacPherson seemed in his element as the golden boy, while Wilkes's disaffected disciple proved that even in the digital age, the price of betrayal remains 30 pieces of silver. I wonder how that works out in euros?
· Until March 9. Box office: 0151-709 4776. Then touring.
