Jesus Christ Superstar (tour)

NOTE: The following review dates from September 2004 and an earlier tour stop for this production. For further information, view current performance listings.

Staging Jesus Christ Superstar is akin to telling the story of the Titanic:
everyone knows what happens at the end, but you have to make it fresh enough
for them to witness it as though it were the first time.

And when dealing with the greatest story ever told, success lies in making
the audience question whether the man before them is really the son of God?

The matter is raised in Tim Rice‘s lyrics: Judas sings: “No talk of God
then, we called you a man”, Mary repeats: “He’s a man, he’s just a man” and
even Herod points out: “And now I understand you’re God, at least, that’s
what you said.”

So the key to making the story of the last seven days in Christ’s life work
on stage, is to allow the audience the space to make their own decision, to
rely on their own faith and to see this man, whoever he may be, lead his
followers, suffer betrayal and commit the ultimate, lonely, sacrifice. To
see a man nailed to a cross and dying a slow, painful death is horrific; to
watch a ham-fisted staging of it is not.

And unfortunately, Bill Kenwright and Bob Tomson offer heavy-handed
direction, hammering the point home with cringing clunkiness, devoid of any
subtlety or acknowledgement of the audience’s ability to make an intelligent
decision.
Showing Jesus restoring a blind man’s sight, for example, answers the
question for us by removing it, thus ruining the show.

It is only the evergreen Andrew Lloyd Webber score and the integrity of
award-winning Glenn Carter, returning to play Jesus on tour, which saves
the production from lapsing into amateur dramatics territory. Carter (also
Jesus in the latest film version of the musical) offers freshness and
wisdom, yet even he at times appeared visibly awkward and uncomfortable with
the obvious way he has been directed.

This year’s Eurovision entrant James Fox makes his musical theatre debut
as Judas. It’s an adequate performance of an angry young man, but lacks the
depth necessary to convince he is confused and scared and that though he loves Jesus he fears for all their
futures.

Martin Callaghan unwittingly shows a glimpse of the true darkness of the
piece in a tremendously performed “Herod’s Song”.

But by the end it is not so much the greatest story ever told, as a shallow
version of the story Kenwright decided to tell. But will he be forgiven?
Apparently so, as the audience cheered and gave it the ovation of a rather
good Eurovision entry. God save us!

– Elizabeth Ferrie (reviewed at Birmingham Hippodrome)