Well fear not because Robert Horn and Kwame Kwei-Armah's book for the stage version is different, and if anything makes the film's story look positively coherent. So we begin with a plot twist more implausible than any of the monsters, as Zeus has had a baby with his actual wife. This is Hercules (Luke Brady,) a deity turned (partly) human by his uncle Hades (Stephen Carlile) in an attempt to thwart a prophecy and steal Zeus' throne. Raised among humans and trained to be a hero by Phil (Trevor Dion Nicholas,) Brady's Hercules is a lovable doofus who can't control his own strength and awkwardly tries to flirt with his love interest Meg.
If the show doesn't deliver much plot what it does have in spades is camp value: Unlike many other Disney shows this one doesn’t particularly try to copy the look of the original animation, leaving costume designers Gregg Barnes and Sky Switzer to open the show in Olympus with the Ensemble as gods flashing their abs; before we get to Brady’s signature look as Hercules in a tight mesh top. The show-stealing Chorus of Muses (Candace Furbert, Sharlene Hector, Brianna Ogunbawo, Malinda Parris and Robyn Rose-Li) get numerous costume changes into fabulous outfits many a drag queen might think were “a bit much.”
Carlile’s Hades is a cloak-swishing panto villain, and pantomime also comes to mind with a lot of the dialogue, which is full of incredibly cheesy jokes, some of which are aimed well over the younger audience members’ heads. There’s also a surprising amount of male characters flirting with each other, but even with all this the campest thing might be the massive Greek columns that swish and swirl constantly around Dane Laffrey’s set – columnography is presumably by director/choreographer Casey Nicholaw. All this can’t quite upstage a strong cast, with the standout being Mae Ann Jorolan as Meg, who also gets the show’s catchiest number “I Won’t Say (I’m In Love.)”
Of the new songs padding out the evening Menken and Zippel haven’t really come up with any to match the originals, but at least those are a very strong selection, and judging by tonight’s audience have a lot of recognition – maybe Hercules is a more widely beloved part of the Disney canon than I’d thought. Some of the weirdness and changes don’t hit the spot – given that Phil has been turned from satyr to human I don’t think there’d have been any expectation for Pain and Panic to stay demonic, but changing them to human souls called Charles and Bob (Lee Zarrett and Craig Gallivan) feels like an inside joke the creatives found hilarious but which hasn’t translated to the audience.
While I don’t want to be one of those Greek people complaining because of changes to completely made-up mythology, Hades taking over the Fates’ role of cutting people’s lifelines was an irritating step too far for me, even if the special effect of floating souls on a burst of air looks gorgeous. And the least said about the velociraptor/rat… thing the better. You can see the budget spent on Hercules right there on stage just like you can see the talent of the cast, so there’s definitely a bit of a disconnect to how much less slick the actual structure of the show is; fortunately this just about stays on the right side of “endearing mess” versus “staged half a dozen drafts before it was actually ready.”
Hercules by Alan Menken, David Zippel, Robert Horn and Kwame Kwei-Armah, based on the film by Ron Clements, John Musker, Donald McEnery, Bob Shaw, Irene Mecchi, Kaan Kalyon, Kelly Wightman, Randy Cartwright, John Ramirez, Jeff Snow, Your Mum, Vance Gerry, Kirk Hanson, Francis Glebas, Mark Kennedy, Bruce M. Morris, Don Dougherty and Thom Enriquez, is booking until the 28th of March 2026 at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane.
Running time: 2 hours 10 minutes including interval.
Photo credit: Johan Persson.
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