Hercules - London Review

Review by James

Over a decade in development, only having try-outs internationally until now, ‘highly anticipated’ doesn’t come close to describing excitement levels surrounding the eventual West End unveiling of Hercules, the stage adaptation of the 1997 fan-favourite animation. This was when the nineties Disney, Alan Menken renaissance was at its absolute height: Beauty And The Beast, Aladdin, and Hunchback Of Notre Dame to name but a few. All of them have transferred to the stage either in the West End or stateside at some point, thanks to the magic of Disney Theatrical.

This is the latest Disney-animated export to make the glossy transition, enthusiastically directed by Aladdin’s Casey Nicholaw. After the behemoth phenomenon of Frozen’s 3-year residency, the Greek god zips into Drury Lane’s vast auditorium. Frozen of course, took the cinematic box office by a swirling ice storm, but only received a lukewarm critical reception on Broadway. At the performance I attended here – was was most surprising, considering Let It Go had been playing on repeat the world over – was that none of the many children in their outfits, were laughing that much. 
But, you wouldn’t know Hercules was following in its shadow at all. It’s a lot lighter and breezier than Frozen was and all the stronger for it. There is a rather hollow, cynical quality to it all though. It feels like theatre at its most commercially pre-packaged, going at an absolute lick, without ever really slowing down to allow much depth or heart, only in the occasional, too few quieter moments. The merchandise machine was on full Disney Store throttle too, with an impressive stall in the foyer - at £40 a T-Shirt, it’s bound to go on to Broadway!

Stepping into the titular role is the perfectly cast Luke Brady (treading similar territory as he did in the Dominion Theatre’s colossal staging of Dreamworks’ The Prince Of Egypt a few years ago). Brady’s terrific: funny, earnest, energetic, and anchors this adaptation with some vitally needed soul. His centrepiece number, composer Menken and lyricist David Zippel’s Oscar-nominated, wonderful Go The Distance – remains a moving declaration of heroism, dreams, and the aspirational determination of self discovery. His voice hits those top notes fantastically well. His entrance too, to new song: Today’s Gonna Be My Day - conveying his well-meaning misfit clumsiness, is also a clever highlight; over-eager to showcase his newly acquired super-strength - terracotta pots unwittingly smash and pillars topple as he sprints along a conveyer-belt projection landscape. The evening is his, and surely an Olivier nomination will follow at next year’s ceremony. 

Speaking of energetic, just as the Greek-centric introduction threatens to overdo the mythical backstory, we hear ‘Hold It!’and the forces of nature that are The Muses make their unstoppable entrance, inventively rising from plinths hidden below. These fan-favourites had an ecstatic audience reaction throughout, almost upstaging, and certainly personifying, all the joyously optimistic proceedings around them. 

The effervescently bright sets from scenic designer Dane Laffrey, are delightfully innovative – menus are tablets of rock at a restaurant called ‘Set In Stone’. The Greek world of the heavens, is pearlescent with the golden opulence of a mightily projected staircase in George Reeves’s effective video design. The special effects and model creature work,incorporate so much skilled technique. Hercules’s parents are immortalised in statues brought to life by encased spotlights, the Hydra monster’s orange-eyed dragon puppetry works very well - without ever being to overblown or scary – and there’s a climactic surprise with Hades’s final gigantic reveal – all complemented by atmospheric thunder and lightning. 

But it’s the two leads and their central romance which always remains the strongest element. Like Brady, the character of Meg obtains a rewarding sense of agency, but in her case, as in the film, its portrayed with a perpetually disparaging, eye-rolling, sassy cynicism by Mae Ann Jorolan. ‘Dating is just meeting someone until you find out you don’t like them’. She was always a sharp character, far flung from the traditionaldamsel in distress archetype, and it’s an amusingly sharp performance. There’s a nice new song between the two of them: ‘Forget About It’ - simultaneously assertive and tender.In her classic number: ‘I Won’t Say I’m In Love’ (complete with the Muses fluttering in to provide relationship commentary - all pink dream-sequence aesthetic), the lyric ‘who you are and how you’re feeling’ is changed to ‘nothing but a mass of muscle’. The couple’s dynamic is even surprisingly edgier than I was expecting, strewn with innuendo. 

It’s the panoply of double-entendre, punning and endlessly poor one-liners elsewhere, which make the book so inconsistent. Some of Kwame Kwei-Armah and Robert Horn’s writing is so satirically detailed. For instance, shortlyafter Zero To Hero illustrates the media flurry of Hercules negotiating fame and the adoration of new-found celebrity, areporter introduces herself as being from ‘Times New Roman’. If only all the script had retained this biting sense of wit. 

Frustratingly though, Stephen Carlile’s Hades, is here in nothing but extremely lacklustre, full-on pantomime villain mode, with constant, unbelievably bad jokes doubling as dialogue. He strains so much for contemporary laughs about screen time and spoilers, that any villainy - or sense of fast-talking, conversational sarcasm that made James Woods’s tour-de-force in the original so scene-stealingly, effortlessly funny – never appears. Nor do The Fates, those eye-popping,Macbeth-like witches, and Pain and Panic, inexplicably called Bob and Charles, don’t have nearly strong enough material. Hades’s costume is also a strange let-down: none of the flaming, electric blue hair, instead just a generic red cape. 

Hades’s profoundly odd characterisation remains the biggest disappointment in a show that’s flawed, but otherwise broadly successful, not least because of Menken’s excellent tunes. By the time of the final medley, with A Star Is Born ringing out to a canon of glitteringly gold confetti, I defy any huge fan who grew up loving the original, like 7-year-old me, not to feel awarm glow of childhood nostalgia.

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Hercules continues at London’s Theatre Royal Drury Lane. Tickets are available from https://www.herculesthemusical.co.uk/

Photos by Johan Persson and Matt Crockett