Unfortunately instead of making Percy the coolest kid in camp (the books are American so they take place at a summer camp for the half-blood offspring of the gods, plus an assortment of other mythical beasts,) it makes him a target, and he's sent on a quest to find the stolen lightning bolt of Zeus.
I'm not familiar with the books, although I've seen the aborted attempt to make a movie franchise; still I assume this is a hugely simplified version of the plot, and it's very apparent that the musical adaptation has to deal not only with the events of the story, but with the fact that this is the opening novel in a series, and there's the whole world-building of Riordan's particular take on the myths to be dropped in. Tracz does pretty well under the circumstances, skipping ahead to the action and then filling in some of the background exposition later. I don't know how much anyone completely new to the myths would be able to fill in the gaps, but I imagine the majority of younger audience members are there because they know the books already.
Harwood is a likeable enough lead although never a dynamic one; that falls entirely to Jessica Lee as Annabeth and Joaquin Pedro Valdes as Luke, the more combative of his friends, while the comic charm comes from the half-goat Grover, whom Scott Folan makes a highlight despite not actually being given that many funny lines to work with. Folan's also got some of the most confident vocals in the show, but it's the songs the cast are given that are the biggest problem here.
If a show's a musical you expect some of the songs to be there largely in service of the plot, but would hope for at least a couple to stand out, and however much energy the cast throw into them there's no pretending Rokicki's songs aren't painfully generic, pop-rock numbers that feel interchangeable not only with each other, but with the weaker efforts of any other recent teen musical. Tasked with a lot of exposition they're also less effective at delivering it than the spoken dialogue, so this very quickly becomes one of those musicals where you start wishing for fewer songs.
I certainly did because when Tracz, director Lizzi Gee and designer Ryan Dawson Laight get a moment away from the big musical numbers they give the show a tongue-in-cheek comic touch that's the highlight: There's witty portrayals of Poseidon (Greg Barnett) as a bleached-blond surfer dude and Charon (Paisley Billings) as a disco diva operating a elevator down to the Underworld. The biggest laugh of the show comes when Poseidon apologises to his son, saying he genuinely regrets that he was ever born, suggesting the appetite is there for it to occasionally dip into a darker sense of humour.
But the speed with which the story has to be handled doesn't allow much chance to really play with the material, and it all comes to a head when Percy is mortally wounded, magically healed and back on his feet, all in under ten seconds. There's definite signs that The Lightning Thief could make for a fun family stage show with something to keep everyone interested, but from the evidence of Rokicki's contribution, that show isn't a musical.
The Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical by Joe Tracz and Rob Rokicki, based on the novel by Rick Riordan, is booking until the 31st of August at The Other Palace.
Running time: 2 hours 15 minutes including interval.
Photo credit: Manuel Harlan.
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