Bat Out Of Hell, Edinburgh review: 'a powerful parable for our time'

Goddammit Daddy, you know I love you; but you’ve got a hell of a lot to learn about rock and roll. So ends the opening monologue of Jim Steinman’s musical Bat Out Of Hell, first seen in Manchester in 2017, and based on the mighty albums of rock songs he created, mainly during the 1970s, with the singer and actor Meat Loaf; and it sets the scene for a ferocious two and a half hours of rock ‘n’ roll rebellion that seems even more timely, this January, than it did when it last appeared in Edinburgh, three years ago.

In this version of the show, the monologue is spoken by a blazingly intense Katie Tonkinson as our heroine Raven; and it gives an electrifying kick-start to Steinman’s dystopian sci-fi version of the Peter Pan story (itself an inspiration behind the early Meat Loaf albums) in which Raven, the privileged daughter of city governor Falco, falls in love with lost boy Strat, one of the despised, rebellious, and forever-young mutant underclass who live in the city’s underground tunnels.

Cue an avalanche of familiar but still thrilling Steinman and Meatloaf hits, ranging from Bat Out Of Hell itself, through You Took The Words Right Out Of My Mouth, to a thunderous finale built around the huge 1993 hit I Would Do Anything For Love.

The show revolves around Glenn Adamson’s thrilling performance in the leading role of Strat, backed by a singing voice as raw, rangy and powerful as the young Meat Loaf’s; but Katie Tonkinson takes the lead on songs including Heaven Can Wait, and Rob Fowler and Sharon Sexton - as Raven’s father and her increasingly discontented mother, Sloane - make a superb job of 60s nostalgia song Paradise By The Dashboard Light, and later of their own song, What Part Of My Body Hurts The Most, now added to the Steinman playlist.

If the songs are central, though - and brilliantly supported by musical director Iestyn Griffiths and his terrific seven-piece onstage band - they only form one part of this slightly mind-blowing piece of total theatre, directed with tremendous flair by Jay Scheib. The stage is dominated by two huge screens, which offer up both explosive filmed sequences of city hellscapes, and grainy live video - filmed by black-clad onstage camera operators - of the scenes taking place on stage in Falco’s luxury penthouse apartment, which Raven increasingly views as a prison.

Down below, meanwhile, the gang of 20 lost boys and girls, led by Georgia Bradshaw’s impressive Zahara and Ryan Carter’s lovable Jagwire, sing and dance as though their lives depended on it, mourning what they believe to be Strat’s death with a fabulous version of Objects In The Rear View Mirror May Be Smaller Than They Seem, while Carla Bertran’s Tink - desperately in love with Strat - plots to get rid of Raven once and for all.

The music roars on throughout, in a huge tribute to the vast, rebellious energy and poetry of rock music born in the 1970s, that still echoes through our culture today; as well as to the genius of Steinman and Meat Loaf, both now gone (Steinman died in 2021, Meat Loaf in 2022), but nowhere near forgotten. And the story ends in humiliation for the patriarchal leader and his politics of hate, and a desperate pledge from Strat and Raven to love one another forever, despite the fact that she will grow old, and he never will.

It’s a powerful parable for our time; and it reminds us that if we’re interested in resistance, and in a new age of rebellious self-empowerment for those ground down by a deeply unequal world, then learning a hell of a lot about our own rock ‘n’ roll history may not be a bad place to start.

Bat Out Of Hell is at the Playhouse, Edinburgh, until 11 January; His Majesty’s, Aberdeen, 11-15 March; and at the King’s Theatre, Glasgow, 7-19 April.