Well it won’t win any awards for subtlety! It was apparently always meant to be a musical, well spectacle come rock concert really, originally called Neverland, a modern day Peter Pan featuring ‘The Lost’ and a character called Tink, but for 40 years it was just an album by Meat Loaf which sold 43 million copies (3 of them in the UK, in the charts for 1.5 years) leading to two sequels.
The evil Falco Corporation is pitted against The Lost, but it’s CEO’s daughter is in love with Strat, their leader. As far as story goes, that’s about it, I’m afraid, even flimsier than the Dominion’s previous long-term occupant We Will Rock You. I was surprised to find power ballads predominated over rock songs, most of which were executed well, backed by a fine band. Jon Bausor’s extraordinary design, with projections by Finn Ross, fills the stage and indeed the vast Dominion auditorium to great effect; this is probably the best thing about it. It’s very well staged by Jay Scheib, but the choreography is vanilla pop video.
There’s a lot of talent on stage, but the performing style is uniformly over-the-top, albeit somewhat tongue-in-cheek, everything exaggerated and, well, BIG. I enjoyed the spectacle and admired the execution, but I felt starved of story and I over-dosed on power ballads and pop video dancing. If you’re one of the 5% of the UK population that appears to own the album and you like your shows like rock concerts, it may be for you. I’m glad I waited for the cheap deal.
Gareth's Culture and Travel Blog 