"Bat Out Of Hell: The Musical": likeable, operatic fun falls short of greatness

I wanted so much to love Bat Out of Hell: The Musical.

Of all the so-called "Jukebox Musicals" that have been cobbled together from a group's existing songs, only this one was born to the genre. Songwriter Jim Steinman's original concept was a rock opera version of Peter Pan; finding Meatloaf to sing and releasing an album came to fruition first, and the opera got shelved for forty years underneath the juggernaut of the album's platinum (x14) success. With that start, it should have been better than its competition.

It also swept me into serious nostalgia territory. I was never a big Abba fan (Mamma Mia). I didn't really discover Queen (We Will Rock You) until moving to England. The Four Seasons (Jersey Boys) sang my mother's music. But Meatloaf had delivered the anthems of my high school years ... the soundtrack of sweltering, sticky nights of romantic yearning, illegally obtained beer and grand dreams of escaping small town America. What's more, it had a big production budget, used the cavernous stage space of English National Opera (at the London Coliseum) and was getting solid reviews. So I should have adored it, right?

I liked it. It was an entertaining night out, filled with impressive spectacle and great music. But it failed to connect with me emotionally. It might have been the over-wrought, preposterous plot, or the painfully awkward and graceless choreography, or the fact that two of lead Andrew Polec's sidekicks (Giovanni Spano and Dom Hartley-Harris) both had voices we thought were much more suited to the main role than his. Maybe it was the sting in the tail of tickets priced closer to grand opera than musical theatre. But our main emotion on leaving was not "wow, we were lucky to see that" or "must tell people to get tickets before this closes on", but rather ... "Damn, that music is incredible. I need to listen to those albums all the way through again."

If you're a Meatloaf fan, the music is the main reason to go. You'll find joy in those familiar tunes backed by a full orchestra, delivered with impressive spectacle and an enormous cast. There's nothing new about the plot ... Peter Pan mashed up with Romeo and Juliet, set in a dystopian future Manhattan ... but there is a logic to the song arrangement that furthers the story.

It's a story that would have worked better for me without the dystopian angle. We're introduced to a grim, industrial wasteland run by a wealthy despot named Falco who lives in a secure high rise. He and glamorous but distant wife Sloane are protective parents our Juliet type, called Raven. In the tunnels beneath the city a group of teenagers have somehow been genetically frozen at 18. They are the rebels against the state, staging daring graffiti raids on Falco properties from the backs of their enormous motorcycles. They're called The Lost, and the youngest of them is an impish mascot called Tink. No points for subtlety here. Amazing their leader isn't called Pete. He is, instead, Strat, and you know exactly where the love story will go as he slips through Raven's windows and entices her to adventure in the outside world.

The sub-plot of our heroine's parents is actually the more compelling storyline: the staging for Paradise by the Dashboard Light , where they relive the start of their relationship in flashback, is fantastic fun. "Paradise" is not the end of their relationship, but the set up for an emotionally complex, mature coupling where sparks still fire. There is a thin line between love and hate, which Rob Fowler and Sharon Sexton carry off with a fiery intensity. They add depth to the straightforward story of our young lovers, and make the most of some of Steinman's most soul-shredding lyrics. It's all coming back to me now ... not on either of the Bat Out of Hell albums, but a Steinman song made famous by Celine Dion ... was the emotional high point of the show for me.

The youth plot would have worked better for me if set in the real world, with demanding, university-pushing parents keeping their daughter away from the rebellious drop-out and his gang of idealistic slackers. Admittedly, that would have deprived us of the impressive, multi-level sets where Raven (played by Christina Bennington, who evokes Meatloaf's duet partners far better than Polec's Strat captures the singer himself) pines in her sky scraper bedroom while the Lost caper in the city's drains below. From speeding motorcycles to dank prisons to a car crashing into the orchestra pit, the show is high on visual spectacle.

None of this really matters by the time You Took The Words Right Out of My Mouth fires up for the grand finale. Perfectly calculated to get people on their feet and clapping along, it essentially ensured a standing ovation.

There were some raised eyebrows when Bat Out of Hell started its limited run in the home of English National Opera. In retrospect, it was totally appropriate. Vast, impressive sets. Showy effects. Bombastic, crowd-pleasing anchor tunes. Completely non-sensical plot. There's even a showy death or two. I think Verdi would have liked it.

It will take more than liking, however, to encourage the producers to find a new home for a longer run in London. Looking around last night's half-empty balcony, I'm sceptical there's demand for more. So if you're a Meatloaf fan, you'd better move fast. Bat Out of Hell is only on here until 5 August. After that, it crosses the Atlantic for a run in Toronto.