Bat Out of Hell

5
Reviewer's Rating

Bat Out of Hell is playing at the Dominion Theatre after a huge success at the Coliseum last year. It was nominated for a 2018 Olivier Award for Best Sound Design and won the Evening Standard Radio 2 audience award for best musical. It is based on the Meat loaf album Bat Out of Hell and Bat Out of Hell II: Back into Hell, which sold 43 million copies worldwide. The songs include ‘I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)’, ‘Two Out of Three Aint Bad’, ‘Dead Ringer For Love’ and ‘Paradise’ by the Dashboard Light.

This rock musical is based in a post-apocalyptic town called Obsidian and revolves around the young leader of The Lost, Strat (Andrew Polec). He falls madly in love with Raven (Christina Benington) whose father rules Obsidian. Her strict and protected upbringing spurs on a desire to experience something beyond the four walls of her bedroom. Her parents forbid her from leaving the house and stop her from developing a relationship with Strat, the lover of her life. This leaves her no choice but to run away, leaving behind chaos and destruction in the wake of a battle between Strat and her father,  his arch enemy.

The stage is an impressive theatrical explosion of motorbike crashes, fireworks and blood making the performance all the more thrilling. A camera follows Raven throughout the show, projecting a live recording of her performance on screen. It is an interesting use of story-telling, the camera allows the audience to really see what is going on stage while metaphorically blending appearance and reality.  The actors are incredibly talented, their voices express such intense emotion and energy, they have the whole audience on their feet cheering – their unrestrained passion and explosive visuals will absolutely rock your evening.