If you’re a fan of the music of Meat Loaf you’re probably going to love the musical Bat Out of Hell. Well, you’re probably going to love the music in Bat Out of Hell. The story and other aspects of the show may be more down to the flip of a coin if you love them or not.
For this review I saw Bat Out of Hell at the Peacock Theatre in London in February of 2022. I was sat towards the back in the upper section of the theatre and whilst you still had a good view of the stage speakers did obscure the view of projections which was more relevant to this show than most others you’ll see in the West End, but we’ll get to those later.
The story is both simple and complicated. It’s basically a similar idea to the show We Will Rock You. Both are set in a dystopian future where we follow a gang of rebels as they take on the rich establishment. Neither are biographical to their source of songs. Bat Out of Hell doesn’t tell the story of Meat Loaf just as We Will Rock You doesn’t tell the story of Queen. So anyone expecting this to be like the shows Beautiful or Jersey Boys prepare yourself for something much closer to Mad Max.
Set in a future version of Manhattan we follow the love story of Strat and Raven. Strat is the leader of the rebels and Raven is the daughter of Falco, who is the big bad of the show. There is a Romeo and Juliet aspect to this, but without Romeo having parents that are warring with Juliet’s dad.
Throw in that Strat and his group of Lost Boys (and gals) don’t age and you have elements of Peter Pan in there as well. Quite a lot of Peter Pan in fact as you have the character Tink who is on Strat’s side, but just as Tinkerbell sometimes causes issues for Peter Pan, so does Tink cause issues for Strat. In this sense you could also think of Raven as Wendy and although Hook wasn’t Wendy’s dad the comparison still works.
So it’s a simple story of good vs evil and a love story thrown in which is all fairly simple, but the non aging teens, Mad Max style future setting and Peter Pan plot do add confusing aspects to the proceedings.
As far as the songs go I had the realisation that I didn’t really know that many Meat Loaf songs. I think everyone there was waiting for I’d Do Anything For Love as what is probably his most famous song, and I guessed there’d be one called Bat Out of Hell, but truthfully none of the others really jumped out to me even with ‘oh yeah this one’. Still, the soundtrack was fun although many felt more like songs that just fit the theme of what was going on rather than they really advance the story.
The acting in the show was fine, but I wasn’t really into the characters that much. The more the show went on I found I was on the side of Falco and didn’t really like Strat or Raven that much to be on their side. I get it’s who the characters are and the whole theme of Meat Loaf is sex, drugs and Rock n Roll, but for me I felt these are better characteristics for quirky side characters than leads. I didn’t find I related much to their rebel nature or their cause and felt they were people I wouldn’t want anything to do with in real life.
The production on the show was impressive with some spectacular on stage flames which fit what you’d expect from something themed on Meat Loaf and the music was loud enough to feel in your chest. The most impressive thing for me was the use of projection in the show. There are some scenes which take place in a room which is obscured by a screen. You can see them, but there is a definite barrier that limits the view. This isn’t a big issue though as they have a camera person worked into the show filming the cast with camera angles which is clearly a very carefully worked out choreography.
You would then see the projected view of the scene on a screen on the left of the stage and a mirror image of it kinda see through on the front of the room with the obscured view. This blurred the lines between this being a theatre and film like experience and is something you don’t often see done in live theatre.
Conclusion
If you’re a fan of Meat Loaf songs you’ll probably think this is great, but as someone who wasn’t that familiar with most of the songs I thought they were mostly fine, but wasn’t as wowed by it that much. The story is just a blend of We Will Rock You/Mad Max/Peter Pan and did the job to give the excuse for the songs, but wasn’t anything ground breaking. It was a fun show, but didn’t win me over as much as others like We Will Rock You or Rock of Ages. If you want an inoffensive rock themed musical you can do better, but if you’d not seen Bat Out of Hell before it’s still definitely worth check out once.
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