Review – Retro “Booth from Hell” certainly Alexandra’s theater of Birmingham – Standard Bromsgrove

For the first time, I saw this show back in January 2022, also in Alex, where the excellent PR team had invited several heads of leather lined motorcyclists to bypass the theater as we put in line to check our Covid passages.

While those dark days that appear from the pandemic now look distant bad sleep, I have kind memories of this roar of Harley-Davidson, which rotates the roar and the celestial smell of gasoline in the fresh winter air.

No Harley congratulates this time unfortunately – but neither a queue and no masks, but only a boom of excitement from an audience of mostly old rockers here to celebrate some of the biggest hymns ever written. Unfortunately, they were unfortunately Jim Steinman and meat bread. I admit when the house is empty and with the help of Alex, singing on top of my voice to their best tunes is a fault.

Photo from Mark Senior. Chris Davis Studio. s

While the audience enters the audience, I-Spy Biker Boys and Girls, littered around the huge wall set to John Bauzor wall.

There are rocks, a mysterious tunnel, two huge movie screens and a house, a landing scene – through which we can see a bedroom and more. Players on the keyboards, percussionists and rock guitarists can be spotted at different heights, making a literal “wall of rock”.

The lights of the house go, and MD Iestyn Griffiths enhances the group. Except that we do not receive the initial number immediately, but only a dramatic catastrophe and spotlight of our character Raven, who delivers a hard prologue about how she tried to kill her father with Fender Stratocaster.

Photo from Mark Senior. Chris Davis Studio. s

What follows is an unpretentious rock opera that rudely steals plots of literary classics and mixs them in a melting vessel. Do not try to look for it to make sense, especially common sense; There is nothing common in Steinman’s book on Bat of Ahle and why the only meaning is a delightful “non” meaning.

The story- the way is the porridge of Peter Pan and Romeo and Juliet with a little alice in the Wonderland, the lost boys and the sleeping beauty, all this is placed in some crazy dystopic world of rich people living above the earth and poor , never growing teens in the catacombs of the mole-where after his preamble Raven escaped the tunnel to connect with his tribe.

Katie Tonkinson, who plays Raven, has the charisma in Picked plus a great voice to take us with her during his trip. Her satellite is Pan – or more recently – repressed by a torn, athletic and vocal resonance glen Adamson.

In the rich house, they also repress their roles as a bad dad and his wife, Sloan, the mighty slave Fowler and the cheerful Sharon Sexton. They have their own story about the back of the Lost Work of Love.

This is a big, hardworking company, directed with the bold of Take-No-Prisoners by Jay Shabit and with full choreography by Xena Gusthart.

In addition to the four major directors, standing out for me by the extremely talented common company are Joshua Dever in the role of Hoffman, Beth Wowkok as Vilmos and Harriet Richardson-Cokerline as spinot-mnethism.

Photo from Mark Senior. Chris Davis Studio. s

The whole action is caught live on the stage by a roving operator and is transmitted directly to the giant screens. I am also a big fan of the current trend of using hand microphones. It’s retro and – a little like vinyl records – the sound of Gutsier.

History aside (and I personally like better than the book “We will rock”) What we all came to see and hear are the classics of Steinman/Meatloaf and they just keep coming. We were, of course; “Dead Ringers for Love” and “For crying out loud,” everything comes back to me, “take the words straight out of my mouth” and “two out of three are not bad.”

Come the walk, we were on our feet, joining – fans of the bats of hell and everything!

The bat of hell is in the theater of Alexandra in Birmingham until February 22. Click here for times, tickets and more.

Review by Ewan Rose,

EUAN ROSE reviews.