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Disney made Hercules in its boldest era, the 1990s – the time when it pensioned off those one-dimensional princesses and sanctimonious woodland critters in favour of fresher stories. The film’s gloriously leftfield take on Ancient Greece converted the muses into a gospel choir, sketched its characters with the spiky clarity of amphora paintings, and turned this hero’s rise into a pacy satire of celebrity culture. Unfortunately, there’s none of the same imaginative energy in this stodgy new stage version, which hits the expected beats without capturing the lovable zaniness that makes Hercules a fan fave.
Shivering in terror at Hades and his monstrous hellions was a core Nineties childhood experience, but even a dish of Angel Delight wouldn’t tremble at Stephen Carlile’s telly host-esque evocation of the ruler of the underworld – Carlile feels as though he’s trading in kitchen gadgets on QVC, not tormented human souls. Disappointingly, they’ve cut the original’s crone-tastic trio of Fates (when will older women in musical theatre catch a break?) with Hades instead hacking away at ropes representing human lives, while two silk scarves floating in a pyramid of light inadequately represent the innumerable souls in his dominion.
If the darkness is gone, thank the gods for star Luke Brady’s twinkly brightness as Hercules: he’s camp and joyful in a collection of truly bizarre Greek-style get-ups (a tracksuit seemingly made from old bandages; bunion-friendly orthopaedic sandals: a white mesh mini-toga that could win first prize in a gay bar costume contest). The film’s standout song, “Go the Distance” is fantastic here, full of pep and yearning. The muses are gorgeous, too – the show is lit up by this charismatic quintet’s sinuous harmonies, fabulous Motown party-worthy outfits and general clowning around. Hercules’ underpowered romance with Meg (a stoic, Xena-esque Mae Ann Jorolan) gets a serious boost from the heart-melting ballad “I Won’t Say (I’m In Love)”, beautifully staged in a topiary-filled garden where the muses pop up and flit around like tipsy fairies.
Still, when the music stops, this show’s warmth evaporates. Writers Robert Horn and Kwame Kwei-Armah’s disjointed update of the story flirts with modernisation before settling on something infinitely more trad. The script is peppered with one-liners that feel like they’re lifted from totally different shows: “He’s so strong I thought he was a single mother,” quips Hades about Hercules, with jarring cynicism. Meg has a whole song about how she doesn’t need rescuing – then gets a dispiriting arc, which teaches her to stop yapping, and start letting strong-armed Herc do his work.
This retooled story is not exactly calculated to thrill the hearts of the millennials who grew up with the film, and the kids they’ll bring along. And nor is designer Dane Laffrey’s overly tasteful, faintly joyless aesthetic, which clutters the stage with projections of Greek mosaics and cumbersome giant columns. Massive puppet monsters romp around, delivering much-needed kid-pleasing thrills in the first act, but the overly abstract final battle feels more Burning Man rave than roaring fires of hell.
Disney has made many attempts at creating a West End hit to match director Julie Taymor’s visionary take on The Lion King. Hercules has two things stopping it from going the distance: a lack of stagecraft to create moments of real awe and wonder, and a lack of consistency in a script that doesn’t really have a cohesive take on who these mythic figures are, and why we should care about them. The Hercules movie took a setting that most of its audience knew nothing about, and made it lovable – converting the faraway, impersonal glories of Ancient Greece into something warm, modern, and culturally relevant. This musical’s vast, almost entirely male creative team hasn’t found a way of replicating that Herculean feat: like its hero, this story has lost its divine status in clumsy hands.
Disney’s ‘Hercules’ is playing at Theatre Royal Drury Lane from 24 June until 28 March 2026
