Bottoming for Jesus ★★★★☆

Bottoming for Jesus: Pickled in Blame and Shame — ★★★★

Bottoming for Jesus is a powerful, sharply written exploration of what happens when being gay, finding yourself and a life shaped by God all collide.

At the centre is the religious concept of kenosis, the emptying of the self. Here, it becomes something closer to a spiritual douche: stripping away parts of yourself because you have been taught that somehow you are the problem. That deeply ingrained queer instinct of thinking, it must be my fault, runs throughout the work.

Drawing on experiences within the Mormon Church, the show reflects a familiar gay and queer reality through an unapologetically personal lens. There are apologies for who you were, apologies for what you did, apologies for who you have become — until you realise just how thoroughly you can become pickled in blame and shame.

But this isn’t simply an attack on religion. The script is clever enough to examine faith, sexuality, body positivity and self-worth from multiple angles. It holds a reflective lens up to the experience of being both gay and shaped by Christianity, including the strange modern pressures of being a gay man on social media.

There are a few genuine ouch moments, those uncomfortable flashes of recognition where something lands a little too close to home. Beneath them is a powerful conversation about the exceptional self: why are we constantly trying to change ourselves to avoid some imagined consequence rather than learning to accept what already is?

The production itself is polished, confident and packed with gay excellence. Its perspective feels authentic, its storytelling considered and its message powerful without losing its queer bite.

If you’ve ever wrestled with religion while coming out, questioned how faith and queerness can occupy the same body, or spent years saying sorry for simply existing, Bottoming for Jesus is absolutely for you.

Perhaps it’s finally time to stop emptying yourself for everybody else.

★★★★ — Four stars