THE word of God is coming to Stourport with a show of "jokes as old as Moses' toes and just as corny".

The Reduced Shakespeare Company will be performing The Bible: The Complete Word of God (abridged) at the Stourport Civic Hall on Tuesday, April 1.

Cast member William Meredith, one of just three performers taking on all of The Bible's main players, spoke to The Shuttle ahead of the show.

He said: "I've never had a tour kick off quite like it. We'd already booked everything and we were rehearsing in this pub in South London about a week before it was due to open in Ireland.

"We got a call saying, you're not going to believe this, you've been banned. We though he was kidding.

"Apparently a man in the Democratic Unionist Party in Ulster, who had never actually seen the show, decided it was blasphemous. We'd booked our flights and two nights at the theatre so we decided to go anyway.

"There was such a huge outcry, the BBC and press were there. It went from being banned to sold-out in a couple of hours. It really was the best publicity we could ask for."

The company, which started in the 1980s, originally came about after a group of actors put together a 10-minute Hamlet and a 10-minute Romeo and Juliet for a Renaissance Fair in the USA.

It became so popular that the group decided to reduce the entire works of Shakespeare into one play. The show debuted at the Edinburgh fringe and spent years in the West End.

William added: "We thought what's the next long and boring thing we can condense down? Let's do the best-selling book of all time.

"We always ask the audience how many people have read The Bible and it's about five or six so really it's a public service that we're offering.

"It deserves respect but it's certainly not like church. The jokes are as old as Moses' toes and just as corny.

"You cut all the boring bits out and go straight to the sex and violence. Most of it is brief mentions of subjects, it's just massive."

The company have also recently debuted their Complete History of Comedy in the USA, which will be performed at the Edinburgh Fringe this summer along with the original Shakespeare show.

For more information visit thecivicstourport.co.uk