Get Those Vinyls Out, 2018 Is The Year of The Jukebox

London's always had a bunch of jukebox musicals - Mamma mia and Thriller Live have been around for ages, WWRY did... 12 years I believe... and there were shorter runs like Our House, Tonight's the Night and that Spice Girls thing, plus shows like Priscilla that use a back catalogue too. I feel like the balance is fairly decent, but then I'm biased as Bat out of Hell is finally MY music and MY time on stage. Don't care for Tina Turner and I'd see Strictly Ballroom for the dancing, not the music.

I -am- disappointed by Broadway though. In the last few years, they've had massive success with completely fresh new musicals like Hamilton, Dear Evan Hansen, Comet, Come From Away... and now suddenly there's a glut of jukebox musicals and movie adaptations? Ah well, it'll save me tons of money in not feeling the need to go to New York.

We also have Katherine Kingsley’s Dusty to look forward to from Jonathan Harvey and Maria Friedman.

No, 'Bat Out of Hell' is not a juke box musical. Jim Steinman originally intended it as a book musical but then diverted the songs to be material for MeatLoaf. It is one of the show's qualities that the score fits the book so well and for me it works perfectly as a proper musical. Of course I suppose you could say the same of 'Mama Mia!' but everybody knows that existing pop songs by ABBA have been shoehorned into a story whereas this misconception about 'Bat Out of Hell' seems to be promulgated in current advertising for the show, some of which does not even mention Jim Steinman and attributes the music to MeatLoaf.