The Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical
Review by Sam
⭐⭐⭐
The musical adaptation of Rick Riordan’s best-selling book receives its London premiere at the Other Palace, but is it a show worthy of the gods?
12-year-old Percy’s life is transformed when he discovers that he’s the half-blood son of Poseidon. Along with his new friends, Percy must then embark on a quest to find Zeus’ missing lightning bolt, in order to prevent a war between the Greek gods. Similar to Starkid’s A Very Potter Musical, the show takes a silly and tounge-in-cheek approach to the material, which fans of the characters and book series will undoubtably love.
Joe Tracz adaptation tells the story at rapid pace, racing through the narrative in order to cover as many fan favourite scenes as possible. This momentum causes the production to feel overwhelmed by the scale of its source material, with many scenes not feeling fully realised and included solely for fan-service. As a result the show relies heavily on audiences prior knowledge of the story, which may confuse first-time viewers. Accompanying the narrative is a pop-rock infused score by Rob Rokicki which I sadly found to be as inconsistant as the script itself. Despite a fun opening song and handful of toe-taping numbers in the second act, I found the music largely forgettable with the mixed songs adding another layer to an already covoluted book.
As an ensemble the entire cast work extremly well, slickly multi-roling various characters in order to speedily whiz through the narrative, whilst ensuring Lizzi Gee’s tight stage choreography is carried out with precision. I sadly only found the performances of Scott Folan (Grover) and Greg Barnett (Mr Brunner) as standouts in the show. Folan delivers a fantastic vocal performance, whilst Barnett brings hilarious comical enery to the miriad of characters he plays throughout.
Sadly I found The Lightning Thief to be a fairly underwhelming mixed bag. Whilst there are some elements to enjoy (especially for the Percy Jackson fanbase), I felt that the show largely needed a stronger script and score in order to certify itself as the godly hit it strives to be.