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4 days ago
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Since Rick Riordan first conceived his story about a “half-blood” son of a Greek god with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and dyslexia, the Percy Jackson phenomenon has grown bigger and bigger. The first book, in 2005, has been followed up by a multi-part series, two films, a Disney+ spin-off and a video game.
Now a musical is reprising the first story in the series, in which Percy discovers that his absent father is Poseidon, the god of the sea. After being sent to a camp for young demigods, he sets off on a quest to retrieve Zeus’s stolen lightning bolt.
The Percy Jackson brand has been compared to Harry Potter, and this musical might have gone the same way as the latter’s big optics West End adaptation. Instead it retains its quirky off-Broadway spirit. Eschewing the grand scale, it is winningly lo-fi and brings out the directness and humour of Riordan’s novel.
There is charm and wit to Joe Tracz’s book, alongside a cultivated visual scrappiness: the swords and staffs brandished by teen demigods look like toys and Ryan Dawson Laight’s set is minimal. It creates its effects with a sea of projections (designed by Duncan McLean) which enable one world to burst out of the other.
Percy, who is 12 in the first book, is 16 here and oozing teen angst, along with his gang of “half-bloods” who carry the energy and brooding of a high school musical. (“Things couldn’t be worse when your parents run the universe,” they sing.) He and Grover could almost be characters out of Tracz’s last musical, Be More Chill, if they weren’t half gods.
Max Harwood is spot-on as Percy, a rebel and outsider with an unruly temper. Grover, a satyr played by Scott Folan (who also starred in Be More Chill), is a lovable nerd. The gods of the story are not so much looking down on their young half-mortal children as ignoring them, and there is wry commentary on parenting that is neglectful, narcissistic or absent.
The show sends up the gods and certain elements of the plot but without undermining the story overall. Paisley Billings’ Medusa is one comic highlight, Joe Allen’s Dionysus, a gravelly voiced misanthrope, is another. Some of the crossover references may not reach a teen audience (Poseidon is a Bill and Ted pastiche in a Hawaiian shirt, for example) but there is enough humour to serve all.
Rob Rokicki’s songs come thick and fast. The propulsive heavy rock score is very loud and sometimes samey, but many songs are catchy and there are smart lyrics to numbers such as Another Terrible Day, The Weirdest Dream and DOA.
Lizzi Gee’s direction has great pace and her choreography is original. There is so much lightning fast plot that some of it feels too rushed, but there are many highlights: the witty evocation of an underworld in LA, dreams enacted with humour and nifty magic tricks (Richard Pinner is the illusionist behind them), as well as strong performances and singing all round. It might be part of a mega franchise but it feels cute, boutique, original.
