Four years ago, Disney brought its adaptation of Frozen to this venue with wondrous results. Elsa and Anna drew an audience of zealous young cosplayers. Can Hercules bring in his own sword-and-sandal stans? His zero-to-hero journey was certainly winning in the 1997 animated film, with Gerald Scarfe’s sharp-lined designs and James Woods’ deliciously wicked Hades. But lightning does not strike twice with this stage version, although it is a sturdy enough Disney vehicle, with strong songs and plenty of splash.
There is a briskness to its drama, under the direction of Casey Nicholaw, and a pounding out of the material – Songs! Lights! Action! – that makes it seem like a conveyor-belt musical. The characters are not so much divine as 2D, although the sound and optics are always eye-popping, the swivelling set designs intent on moving heaven and earth. Gregg Barnes and Sky Switser’s costumes are heavenly, too, and camp as hell: gold dresses, white Spanx and Hercules in a mesh vest and miniskirt-style toga by the end.
Luke Brady is an incredible singer, as Hercules navigates his journey between godliness and humanness with sidekick Phil (Trevor Dion Nicholas). But the title character is rather generic, a Hunkules who is earnest for too long despite shades of Joey from Friends (why not lean in to that?). The cast around Brady is just as strong vocally, but breezy in their dialogue. The animated film’s Hades was a fabulous creation, his head permanently licked by flames from his underworld. Here, Stephen Carlile looks and sounds like a pantomime baddie, complete with corny jokes. You want to boo him every time he delivers his lines.
The big booming songs – including seven new numbers written by Alan Menken (music) and David Zippel (lyrics) – come to sound samey and a little soupy, such as the new addition, Today’s Gonna Be My Day. They are delivered as briskly as the action by an American-accented cast. Go the Distance is a lovely solo by Hercules but you do not feel quite enough emotion from it. The upbeat numbers work better, especially the reprises of Gospel Truth by the five muses, all powerhouse singers. So there is a stolidity to the story, as if an ancient tablet of stone has taken the place of a flesh and blood heart.
The first half culminates in an NFL style parade, full of military motifs and twirling batons, all taking us outside the story’s ancient world and into unimaginative, bland entertainment, with stock choreography (by Nicholaw and Tanisha Scott). But in the second half Kwame Kwei-Armah and Robert Horn’s book gets funnier, Hercules turns goofier and his love story with Meg (Mae Ann Jorolan, cool cat to Brady’s golden retriever) grows in chemistry. Not everything rights itself, however. The monsters that Hercules meets are certainly big but seem oddly cuddly as if the production is afraid of frightening its younger audience.
Perhaps this musical shows the film’s age: this feels like old-school Disney, its hero not quite self-mocking enough (compare him with the brilliantly self-parodying Maui from Moana) and the earnestness heaped heavy. In the programme, Zippel acknowledges the animated Hercules’s mix of heart and wit. “Everything comes with a wink,” he says. You wish for a few more winks here.