From start to finish, outrageous excellence fills the busy, busy stage as Bat Out Of Hell 2025 rides along on tsunami waves of supreme exhilaration. Thanks to the magnificently expressive skills of the performers it matters not a jot that the storyline is utterly vague and irrational for it’s the intense emotional chemistry of characters and relationships that thoroughly engross and move us. As onstage keyboards, percussion and guitar pound out enough dynamic decibels to rattle snooker balls at The Crucible next door, boundless, energetic theatrical spectacle combines with powerful singing and splendid acting to bring ongoing wow factor joy.
It was in 1977 that American actor-singer Meat Loaf’s mighty Bat Out of Hell first shot out to fly full-blast through the airwaves in all directions. In spite of ups and downs with songwriter, Jim Steinman, and a colossal falling-out when Steinman sued Meat Loaf in 1983, a reconciliation followed in 1993, the year Meat Loaf proclaimed to the world, I Would Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That). Five years before the death of Meat Loaf (Michael/Marvin Lee Aday) in 2022, the award-winning musical took off. With timeless, ultra-meaty, power-house appeal, the bat-duo’s music has a vast following, but as this electrifying rock ‘n roll extravaganza explodes across the stage, it’s not just fans who are thrilled.
Flows of song, frenetic action and excitement, and superbly choreographed, high-octane dance, are maximised by a set that’s on different levels. In the foreground, a slope runs over the top and down at the side of a dark tunnel. At the back, dark-clad musicians pound out chest-shuddering decibels as performers stream over, around, through and in front of the tunnel. This dark zone is the underground world inhabited by rebels – The Lost, and their18-year-old leader, Strat, a “mutant”, who like Peter Pan never ages and will remain forever young (we don’t know why) and one in his gang is even called Tink. They all live in a ruined, post-Apocalyptic world (again we don’t know why). On the right of the stage a raised platform at the back is the bedroom of Raven, lovely daughter of Falco, a wealthy capitalist dictator-figure in charge of dark-clad, shield-and-baton-wielding forces who are out to crush The Lost. Raven’s room is mainly bed, but musicians are busy in its corners (whom she doesn’t notice). One of The Lost, Zahara, is also employed by Falco and his disillusioned wife, Sloane. Things get all Romeo and Juliet/West Side Story when Raven and Strat fall in love, little Tink forming an unrequited love triangle in a Les Mis sort of way. It’s the relationships, of Raven and Strat, Falco and Sloane and Zahara and her beau, Jagwire, all expressed largely in song, that carry the show to its heavenly heights.
As befits Meat Loaf’s showmanship, theatricality fires on all fronts, with flames, mist, colossal glitter bombs, a car, a bike and a revving motorbike just for starters. Two big cinema screens expand the set skywards, filled with ever-changing interest and excitement of their own. Besides images of ruined buildings, skylines, caves, concrete shapes, floating coloured bats, baseball players (with or without bats), abstract designs, flames, colours, light and occasional info on the passage of time, a whole lot of onstage action is screened live as a cameraman deftly follows the characters, capturing all the action from multiple standpoints and in varying formats.
Another impressive course in this never-ending visual feast is the profusion of costumes, with frequent changes and tweaks ensuring surprise and interest never flag in that department, either. In their shabby, underground world of mucky mattresses, The Lost sing and dance in attractive arrays of uneven tatters and patches, in leather, lace and bits of fur, in black T-shirts, dinky shorts and waistcoats, boots, suspenders, head bandanas galore, in baggy, tattered pants, knee-pads for Tink and eventually adding white shirt and glittery elements for Strat. Across the social divide dresses reflect rich indulgence, and neat-haired Falco sports suit and waistcoat. Then it’s all change for an orgiastic Rocky Horror-style scene when baseball, underwear and outrageous behaviour atop a blue car all come into play. (Meat Loaf himself played Eddie in the 1975 Rocky Horror Picture Show film and on Broadway.)
All the lead roles are most impressively embraced with total energy and commitment. Dynamic, powerful singing all round injects meaningful expression into every song, bringing characters and relationships to life, and the acting, in spite of the potential (but not actual) encumbrance of hand-held mics, is splendid. But it’s not just power and pathos the cast do well: their comic timing is also good.
Glenn Adamson’s Strat (presumably O’Caster) is magnificent, according befitting energy and ultimate theatricality to Meat Loaf’s songs, along with curly hair, dark-rimmed eye-ballings, bare chest, and blood (yes!), sweat and tears. The bigger than colossal Act I finale of Bat Out of Hell leaves everyone in a state of incredulous breathlessness, but, thankfully, Strat doesn’t strangle himself in the multiple windings of his microphone cable. Katie Tonkinson’s Raven, Beth Woodcock’s charming, characterful Zahara, and Ryan Carter’s Jagwire all inject fervour and believability into their relationships and create personas the audience embrace as they, too, pour full justice into every song. As Sloane, Sharon Sexton is truly phenomenal, the emotions expressed in her songs so massively affecting, especially in duets with Rob Fowler’s excellent Falco as their relationship goes through its downs and ups. Songs like What Part of My Body, All Revved Up with No Place to Go, Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad, You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth and all the rest are not just performed but inhabited.
Obviously, there’s a lot of full-throttle firing on all cylinders, yet the show maintains good balance and pace with quieter times giving poignant ballads full effect and humour playing an important part, too, in connecting with the audience. We end with a happy ever after into the bargain.
An exceptional experience.
Eileen Caiger Gray
