Come Alive! review – Greatest Showman circus show has premium pizzazz but a few pitfalls

There are some irrefutable facts in this world – and one of them is that Benj Pasek and Justin Paul wrote some darn catchy tunes when they scored the much-loved movie musical The Greatest Showman. So catchy, in fact, that these tunes have helped spawn a big-top musical circus extravaganza that has pitched up in west London for an extended winter stay.

Titled Come Alive! The Greatest Showman Circus Spectacular, the plot here is completely original – there isn’t a barnacle of Barnum in sight. It’s also about as threadbare as they come (and considering it’s being compared to The Greatest Showman, that’s saying something).

To surmise – a circus devotee, Max, is seduced by cocky ringmaster Simon to pick up a top hat and step into the limelight – much to the unexplained chagrin of her aerialist boyfriend. That’s about an hour’s worth of narrative, which is told between some admittedly entertaining circus sequences, scored to all your favourite hummable numbers like “Rewrite the Stars”, “This Is Me” and “A Million Dreams”.

What the piece isn’t, and much to its credit, is an easy cash-grab banking on a well-known brand to bolster the presence of a relatively pedestrian circus show. Because it could so easily have all been phoned in: even before opening, tickets for Come Alive! were selling like hot water bottles in a snowstorm.

The Empress Museum venue, transformed into a 700-seat big top, is decked out with fairly premium pre-show installations, props and entertainment, while the technical bells and whistles across the performance allow each number to feel distinct and visually arresting. A comparison, and a complimentary one, would be to the vibe of somewhere like ABBA Voyage. Creative director Simon Hammerstein (yes, relative of that Hammerstein) knows exactly how to make sure his audiences have a good time, with whimsical interactive sequences and a general sense of earnest endeavour. There’s not a drop of cynicism in this heady circus cocktail.

Strong talent is also on offer here – the two leads, Simon Bailey and Aaliya Mai, are playful and charismatic (though occasionally drowned out by sound design, though that’s near-impossible to get perfect in such a cavernous space), while there are some solid performances from trapeze artists, cyr wheelers, silk aerialists and more. There is even a tightrope sequence to the song “Tightrope”, which would’ve otherwise been unforgivable.

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With the plot so thin (and in act two, unnecessarily confusing), it’s hard to think of a reason why the team resorted to turning this into a two-act experience rather than a tight 90-minute spectacle. The second half eventually seems to run out of circus tricks and resorts to simply staging hit numbers while clowns do energetic choreography.

With Disney rustling up a screen-to-stage version of the tale, this circus show is a satisfying amuse-bouche for what might one day be a gigantic West End bonanza. In the meantime, in the moments when this does comes alive, it really does justify its presence.