Bat Out of Hell At Blackpool Opera House Review

Reviewed by Cath Joyce

I am a huge Meat Loaf fan so was very excited to attend the opening night of Bat Out of Hell at Blackpool’s famous Winter Gardens.

Written by Jim Steiman, the musical features the legendary rock music from Meat Loaf’s trilogy of Bat Out of Hell albums. The show premiered back in 2017 in Manchester and since then it has played all over the world including London, New York, Toronto and Germany. Sadly both Jim Steinman and Meat Loaf are no longer with us and this new tour is dedicated to the memory of them both.

Set in a dystopian future, Obsidian, formally Manhattan, is a bleak, desolate place ruled by ruthless dictator Falco and controlled with his cruel and merciless riot police. Chemical warfare has frozen the DNA of the city’s youth and they now live in squalor as “the Lost” trapped forever in their 18 year old bodies. Led by Strat they live in the old tunnels beneath the ruins, revelling in their freedom but always only a step ahead of Falco’s forces. Meanwhile Falco’s daughter, Raven, is now 18 and is tired of her life protected from the outside world inside Falco Tower. She longs for freedom and wants to find out about life away from her parent’s control.

The large set was very impressive with the skyline of a devastated city in the background, Falco tower took up the right hand side of the stage with the rest representing the tunnels and wasteland inhabited by The Lost. When the story was taking place outside the tower the windows became projection screens displaying either background scenery or action taking place on the stage. Camera operators were used to take live shots of the actors giving an alternative “futuristic” view of the story. This worked especially well when the actors moved inside the tower as the audience was able to see better by watching the screen, than peering through the now transparent windows.

Pretty much every stage effect was used during the night, strobes, flames great lighting and glitter from the ceiling, it all added up to one of the most impressive stage performances I have ever seen.  The weakest part of the night was unfortunately the story. A retelling of Peter Pan combined with Romeo and Juliet, it was hard to know what was actually going on at the start and I regretted not reading up on the plot beforehand. However, with two hours of Meat Loaf songs the lack of a good storyline really didn’t really matter as the music was so good.

The night had all the hit songs from the Bat out of Hell albums and the cast all performed them brilliantly. Supported by the band, conducted by Iestyn Griffiths, the audience were singing along to the numbers including “Dead Ringer for Love”, “Rock and Roll Dreams Come Through” and of course “Bat Out of Hell”.

This was definitely not a Meat Loaf tribute act, some of the numbers were performed quite differently than we’re used to hearing but it worked really well. Highlights were “Two out of Three Ain’t Bad” performed by Zahara (Joelle Moses) and Jagwire (James Chisholm), “Heaven Can Wait” by Raven (Martha Kirby) and my favourite of the night, the raunchy rendition of “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” by Falco (Rob Fowler) and Sloane (Franziska Schuster).

The whole cast were amazing, but Glenn Adamson needs a special mention as he was fantastic as Strat, he really managed to capture the essence of the rebellious 18-year-old lost boy and I loved the chemistry he had with Martha ( Raven).

There was such an amazing energy on stage and the whole cast really deserved their standing ovation at the end of the show. We had a great night out and I’m still singing Meat Loaf songs 24 hours later!!

Tickets cost from £20.50 to £55.95 plus £1.50 restoration fee

Bat Out of Hell is on at Blackpool Opera House from the 5th July to 9th July 2022.

For more information or to book tickets visit
https://www.wintergardensblackpool.co.uk/events/bat-out-of-hell/
or call the Box Office on 01253 629600