Bat out of hell- Alexandra Theatre

***

This is music, an album, an era, which oozes nostalgia for me. I bought the album on release and saw ,Meat loaf perform the album live on the “bat”  tour

Raven Will do anything for love- and will do that!

Bat Out of Hell was the debut studio album by American rock singer Meat Loaf and composer Jim Steinman. The album was developed from the musical Neverland, a futuristic rock version of Peter Pan which Steinman wrote for a workshop in 1974. It was recorded during 1975–1976 , was produced by Todd Rundgren, and was released in October 1977 . The album featured Max Weinberg on drums and Roy Bittan on piano from Bruce Springsteen’s E street band. These details matter.

Springsteen, Rundgren and Steinman used to go together to see the opera in New York laying influences and foundations for work from all of them. When Springsteen wrote in Jungleland” “There’s an opera out on the Turnpike, there’s a ballet being fought out in the valley we are hearing the seed corn for “Bat out of hell”.

Anyone who saw the last tour, some three years ago is in for a surprise, many of the original cast remain but the production has been significantly revamped. The cast use hand held mics resulting in several “pass the parcel” moments and a hand held cameraman relays pictures onto two overhead screens.  The combination of the hand held mics and camera work mean that principals are sometimes performing with their backs to the audience. Musical, concert or arena show? You decide

It seems that Mick Lynch is now advising Equity as an overcrowded stage groans with physically accommodating the cast in one of the worst cases of overmanning I have ever seen on a professional stage.

The story? Boy and girl fall in love, Girls father disapproves, love conquers all- but does it? On the album, there is no linear narrative, so the director, Allison Coyne, can do what she wants ,however onstage the story is disjointed and chaotic, the choreography juvenile, apparently taking abandoned dance routines for an “S Club Seven” show, and not changing them much.

The visuals are an amalgam of Mad Max, Bowie’s Hunger City and “We will rock you”.

Onstage a dystopian future unfolds together with an underclass,“The Lost”,  down trodden by the dictator Falco, who never bursts into, “Rock me Amadeus”.

Katie Tonkinson is lithesome and engaging as  Falco’s daughter Raven. Glen Adamson plays an impish rebel leader Strat, physically bearing a remarkable resemblance to the late Rocker ,Ronnie James Dio.  Adamson’s vocals are superb but he cannot replicate the physical presence that Meat Loaf had  and is too fit and handsome to be able to emulate Meat Loaf’s lewdness.

Director Coyne, reimagines, ruins and emasculates, ” Paradise by the dashboard light”, by using the middle aged Falco and Sloane as the protagonists. In the notorious Old grey Whistle test video performance Karla DeVito is a slight 25 year old, physically and sexually overwhelmed and overpowered by Meat Loaf in a raunchy, depraved spectacle too much for the “Me Too” times of today. sex featuring old people is not rock n roll.

A live band playing from an elevated platform give the music raw power and immediacy particularly the guitar and piano who deserved  back -screen shots which they did not receive.

As Ravens’ mother  and father in their roles as Falco and Sloane,  Rob Fowler and Sharon Sexton excel.  Sexton is the star of the show, sexy in her pencil skirts and waist high side split dress, her vocals are outstanding, particularly on, “what part of my body hurts the most” with Falco, her acting the consistent highlight of the show. Carla Bertran, as Tink(erbell) is a delight

A pretty much full opening house on a bitterly cold and wet February evening were well rewarded for their commitment and gave the company a deserved standing ovation at the end. Those that had come to see Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman’s greatest hits had their fill, and the eponymous song twice!

Gary Longden