Bat Out of Hell

[hork]

Posted: 6/30/17 at 10:32pm

This has the greatest web site ever. https://batoutofhellmusical.com/

When is this show coming to the U.S.? I need to see it now, and I have no travel plans to London or Toronto.

[g.d.e.l.g.i.]

Posted: 6/30/17 at 11:44pm

Let me save you three ass-numbing hours. If this was the culmination of a fifty-year dream for Jim Steinman, maybe he should've stayed in bed.

Updated On: 6/30/17 at 11:44 PM

[hork]

Posted: 7/1/17 at 12:34am

I'm still in.

[threetwoone]

Posted: 7/1/17 at 2:58am

I saw it in Manchester a few months ago and it was excellent. There's a reason critics gave it mostly 4 and 5 stars in London after opening last week. Such a cool piece of theatre with a score that is so much better than your average jukebox musical.

[g.d.e.l.g.i.]

Posted: 7/1/17 at 7:47am

Well, you'd expect better pull quotes from "mostly 4 and 5 star" reviews than these:

"Bat Out of Hell? Bat sh*t crazy more like. Jim Steinman's jukebox rock musical is like nothing you're going to see anywhere else right now. [...] Be warned: the songs have barely any connection to the narrative and this is not so much a musical as an exceptionally expensive way of getting them live, onstage and pumped full of OTT drama. [.,.] It's a show which rises or falls through having two leads who can convince us this isn't all just completely awful [...] the tunes may not work within the whole [...] The tiny bits of script - also written by Steinman - are fairly weak, falling back too often on the overblown cheese that many of the songs also do. [...] Really there are only a handful of tracks which stand out [...] It's a pity that Emma Portner's ensemble choreography feels clumsily placed most of the time. [...] this isn't a great musical theatre masterwork." -- Daisy Bowie-Sell, WhatsOnStage

"It's the end of civilisation as we know it! A jukebox musical based on the back-catalogue of that famously chunky (recently slimmed-down) American rock legend Meat Loaf -- actually penned by his gifted on-off song-writer partner Jim Steinman -- has taken up summer residence at the palatial home of ENO. The pair (reconciled these days after much-publicised rifts) dubbed their full-throttle, high-decibel, knowingly OTT and melodramatic music 'Wagnerian rock'. Opera-lovers might well be forgiven, however, for fearing the venue's coffers are being filled at the expense of its artistic reputation. [...] Running to an overlong three hours, and cramming in greatest hits (and not so-great hits), Bat Out of Hell won't win awards for reinventing the musical. Set in a dystopian future of generic oppression and mutinous youth it recalls We Will Rock You, but the book is even weaker than that long-running Queen cash-in [...] evident weaknesses, which extend in Jay Scheib's pumped-up, pyrotechnics-loaded, Max Mad-fashioned production to some iffy video-work [...]" -- Dominic Cavendish, The Telegraph

"Sometimes it's as if Bruce Springsteen is performing Wagner, sometimes it's as if a posse of unemployed Wagnerians are attempting a hyperextended version of Born to Run, and sometimes it's frankly much stranger than that. [...] The plot is likely to mystify anyone who's not an ardent devotee of both Meat Loaf and J M Barrie [...] The script may be thin [...] It's hard to imagine that many of English National Opera's regular clientele will appreciate this three-hour show's lurid silliness or its potential to turn into a singalong. [...] the less said about the ungainly choreography the better [...] light years away from Monteverdi [...]" -- Henry Hitchings, Evening Standard

"As the setting is a dystopian city ruled by a dictator – broken TV sets fizz under a graffitied lattice of charred concrete – the show also brings to mind We Will Rock You, the Queen musical that, along with Mamma Mia!, probably made a Meat Loaf equivalent inevitable [...] Loudness is sometimes overdone in Jay Scheib's production, resulting in some of the perky wordplay of Steinman's lyrics being lost; perhaps ENO's surtitle machine should be commandeered. With the jokes in the songs often overpowered, the biggest laugh comes when a Buick seems to crash into the orchestra pit. The choreography rarely gets beyond synchronised limb-swinging." -- Mark Lawson, The Guardian

"The choreography, by Emma Portner [...] at times, misfires. There are a few writhing moments that simply don't work and, at two hours and 45 minutes, including interval, it could use a trim." -- Ann Treneman, The Times

[theaterdude2]

Posted: 7/1/17 at 8:34am

You're cherry picking the negatives. The FACTS are, (whether you like it or not) it's a huge success in the UK and most of the critics reviewed it positively. Not sure why you're so eager to prove how bad it is. 

[g.d.e.l.g.i.]

Posted: 7/1/17 at 8:59am

It didn't take much picking; if this is how they treat hits, I'd hate to see the reviews for a flop. This won't run two months in NY, if it ever comes that far.

[Lot666]

Posted: 7/5/17 at 1:40pm

theaterdude2 said: "You're [g.d.e.l.g.i.] cherry picking the negatives.."

I have to kind of agree with theaterdude2. While this show is not being universally acclaimed, it's not being universally panned either.

I Googled "bat out of hell london review" and read the first eight reviews from the results. Of those who used the traditional 1-5 star scale, all assigned the show either 3 or 4 stars (to me, that means no one in the sampling panned it). The general consensus seems to be that Bat Out of Hell is no Dear Evan Hansen or Come From Away, with choreography and book being the oft-cited weakest elements, but it features outstanding lead performances set against spectacular visual and lighting designs.

Some of the quotes referenced in an earlier post by g.d.e.l.g.i. are from reviews that I actually read, and I noticed more than one instance where the second half of the critic's thought was omitted (for seemingly obvious reasons). For example, from the What's On Stage review, g.d.e.l.g.i. quoted "Be warned: the songs have barely any connection to the narrative and this is not so much a musical as an exceptionally expensive way of getting them live, onstage and pumped full of OTT drama", but he left out the remainder of the paragraph, which in actuality is complimentary. Here's the complete quote from What's On Stage:

"Be warned: the songs have barely any connection to the narrative and this is not so much a musical as an exceptionally expensive way of getting them live, onstage and pumped full of OTT drama. But with a show this tight, and with its funny bone set perfectly in the right place, who cares? Bat Out of Hell is a glorious, ridiculous, insanely enjoyable night out."

Updated On: 7/5/17 at 01:40 PM

[hork]

Posted: 7/5/17 at 4:14pm

The Glee performance of "Paradise by the Dashboard Lights" is my favorite thing that has ever been on television, so if this show is even half as good as that, I'll be happy.

[Eurotrash]

Posted: 7/27/17 at 9:59am

Having been twice now, I found it enormously entertaining and the audience reaction in London is huge. Yes, the drama is daft-as-a-brush, but a vocal masterclass with those huge, theatrical numbers. Pure, insane entertainment.   

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 7/27/17 at 10:57am

Sounds like it's in better shape than We Will Rock You, which ran 12 years in the West End, bombed it Vegas, but managed to eke out a US tour.  Typically, these types of jukebox musicals tend to fare better in the UK than the US.  If it's entertaining, then it's possible it could be a hit on Broadway.  I'm not a Meatloaf fan, so I don't know whether or not he still has a relevant fan base in the US, but I usually enjoy Steinman, so I'd probably see it for fun if it was on TKTS.

[Famebroadway2]

Posted: 7/27/17 at 11:07am

I REALLY hope this comes to NYC, 

[g.d.e.l.g.i.]

Posted: 7/27/17 at 11:31am

Mister Matt said: "I'm not a Meatloaf fan, so I don't know whether or not he still has a relevant fan base in the US"

What little relevant fanbase he has in the U.S. is because of this album, but the minute they go to the show and see what was in my first reply [TL;DR: "red-headed stepchild of We Will Rock You meets warmed-over Starmania"] instead of a Jersey Boys style rendition of the Meat Loaf biography, I can't imagine it will last. The only people that care about what Jim Steinman intended for these songs are Steinman fans, and after fifty years, they're just happy it's happening at all instead of judging it objectively. (I follow the Facebook groups, so I know whereof I speak.)

"From the producer of Spider-Man and the team behind Dance of the Vampires, the inevitable attempt to cash in on Meat Loaf's signature calling card" has about a snowball's chance in the titular hell of leaving any impression but a negative one on the New York landscape should it arrive. My bet -- and admittedly I could be wrong -- is it goes to Toronto after London (Bell Media didn't sink all that money into the show not to see it on their home shores) and then fizzles out. The hint is in the show's team's prior credits; they didn't go to London first because Broadway wanted this, folks.

As for accusations of my cherry-picking, alright, sure, yes, I highlighted the negatives, but what surprises me is it doesn't strike any of you as a bad sign that all of these "raves" can be summarized, down to the very last letter and stroke, as "Great cast, entertaining as all get-out, shame about the writing." I know we don't expect much from jukebox musicals around here, but come on, for raves, they're not exactly love letters, are they?

Updated On: 7/27/17 at 11:31 AM