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Hell's bells, the bat is back.
After a crowd-pleasing run at the Coliseum last year, and now with an Evening Standard Radio 2 Audience Award for Best Musical stuffed down its tight leather trousers, this bombastic rock musical featuring Jim Steinman’s songs for the legendary 1977 Meat Loaf album returns, and the volume knob is still turned up way past 11.
The plot is nonsense, a dystopian mash-up of Peter Pan and Romeo and Juliet. But who cares about narrative credibility when there are thunderous hits such as I Would Do Anything for Love to get through? Me, actually. The first half — loud and uninvolving — of Jay Scheib’s production left me cold, but the second — fractionally less loud and infinitely more thoughtful — totally won me over. One out of two ain’t bad.
As the young lovers Strat and Raven, Andrew Polec and Christina Bennington are brimful of zest and energy; the biggest laugh of the night comes when an anguished Raven wails: “What happens when I’m 38?” Thankfully, she recovers from thoughts of such unimaginable decrepitude and everyone lives happily, but loudly, ever after.
Until October 27
Best jukebox musicals
