Bat Out of Hell, currently playing at the Regent Theatre in Stoke as part of its 2025 UK tour, is a production of contradictions. It boasts one of the finest vocal casts currently touring the UK, but is utterly hamstrung by chaotic direction, a nonsensical script, and staging decisions that often confuse more than they clarify. It’s a show where the music soars but the story never quite gets off the ground.
Vocally, this is a cast of the highest calibre. Katie Tonkinson as Raven is phenomenal, delivering blistering vocals with effortless power and emotional clarity. Her voice cuts through the musical bombast with ease, anchoring even the most melodramatic moments in some kind of emotional truth. Georgia Bradshaw as Zahara is equally superb. Her voice has real grit and soul, and she manages to inject a sense of grounded reality into a show that so often lacks it. Carly Burns, as Valkyrie, is another standout, her vocals sharp and controlled, and adding energy to every moment she’s in. The male cast members, led by Glenn Adamson as Strat, are similarly strong. Adamson’s vocals are technically impressive, if occasionally undermined by staging choices that favour spectacle over sincerity. The vocal ensemble work is tight, the harmonies well-balanced, especially in light of extensive choreography which is executed with precision. Across the board, the musical performances are thrilling. Without doubt, this is the show’s greatest asset.
The band, playing live on stage, are fantastic. The eight-piece setup gives Steinman’s famously over-the-top rock opera score the kind of full-bodied, thumping presence it demands. There’s something electric about hearing “I Would Do Anything for Love” and “Bat Out of Hell” played with this kind of power in a live setting. The musicians deserve credit for maintaining a relentless pace and intensity without overwhelming the singers, and their presence onstage brings a welcome sense of immediacy to the whole thing.
Visually, the costume design is well pitched. Jon Bausor’s punky, alt-inspired aesthetic feels appropriate for the dystopian biker world the show inhabits: ripped leather, studs, fishnets, and smudged makeup all come together to create a grungy, heightened reality. It’s stylised but never pantomime, and gives the show a distinctive visual identity.
Unfortunately, the story these costumes clothe is a jumbled, incoherent mess. The narrative seems to begin in the territory of Romeo and Juliet, a forbidden love between Raven, the daughter of tyrannical Falco, and Strat, the leader of a gang of immortal youths, but quickly unravels into a bizarre Peter Pan-like fever dream, with characters who never age, adults who don’t understand them, and endless monologues about freedom, escape, and passion that don’t go anywhere. It’s all style and no substance. There’s barely any exposition, and so the audience is left to guess who people are, what their relationships are, or why any of it matters. With the musical numbers coming thick and fast, there’s little to no space for character development. Songs do the emotional heavy lifting, but without context or character, they often feel empty – spectacle in place of storytelling.
The staging doesn’t help. Most of the set is pushed forward, leaving performers with a limited amount of space. This makes the stage feel claustrophobic, especially when large ensemble numbers are involved. Choreography is ambitious, but the sheer number of people onstage during Act 1 makes many numbers feel cluttered and chaotic. Instead of drawing focus to the emotional core of a scene, attention is pulled in multiple directions, and the storytelling suffers as a result. The first fifteen minutes, in particular, are near-impossible to follow. There is simply too much happening at once. In contrast, Act 2 is a marked improvement; it is more restrained, more emotionally focused, and gives the music a chance to connect.
A major issue is the use of two large projector screens that flank the stage. Occasionally they show scenic backdrops, though these are often vague and unhelpful in terms of establishing location, but more often they’re used to show live video footage captured by an onstage camera operator. The intention seems to be to give the show a cinematic edge, but it’s distracting at best and gimmicky at worst. This kind of videography can work when used with precision and artistic intent, as in the work of Jamie Lloyd, but here it feels like a poor imitation. The live video rarely adds meaning or focus, and instead pulls the audience further out of an already incoherent world.
Then there’s the dialogue. If the songs are operatic and soaring, the spoken text is jarring in its clumsiness. In one bewildering early scene, Sloane climbs onto her daughter’s bed, places a pillow on her head and proclaims, “I’m a lamp.” It’s hard to tell whether this is supposed to be absurd, funny, symbolic, or some combination of all three, but the effect is baffling. At several points, characters launch into sudden, violent action with all the realism of a playground scuffle. A thrown mug is accompanied by a stock ‘smash’ sound effect straight out of a cartoon. It becomes increasingly difficult to tell whether the tone is meant to be serious or satirical.
That said, the acting performances themselves are solid. The cast throw themselves into the material with conviction. Tonkinson and Bradshaw manage to carve real emotional depth out of thin air, and Sharon Sexton and Rob Fowler (as Sloane and Falco) make a surprisingly effective pair, even when the direction leads them down some questionable paths, such as stripping to their underwear mid-song for no clear narrative reason. Glenn Adamson does his best with the role of Strat, and although his constant bounding about the stage and exaggerated movements occasionally verge on caricature, it’s hard to blame the performer when the direction pushes him towards sweaty spectacle over sincerity. In the more grounded moments of Act 2, Adamson shows he can deliver stillness and emotion effectively, suggesting the problem lies not in the performance but in the confused directorial vision.
And that’s the heart of the issue. Bat Out of Hell is a production full of talent: the vocals, the band, the energy, and the commitment of the cast are all exemplary. But they are failed at every turn by a production that doesn’t seem to know what it is. The direction is unfocused, the staging overstuffed, the script paper-thin and frequently laughable. For every spine-tingling musical moment, there’s a moment of narrative chaos or visual noise that undoes it.
Ultimately, this is a 5-star cast trapped in a 2-star production. If you go for the music, you’ll leave satisfied. The songs, performed by this ensemble, are genuinely electrifying. But if you’re hoping for a cohesive musical experience with emotional clarity and a compelling story, Bat Out of Hell crashes long before it takes flight.
Bat out of Hell plays at the Regent Theatre until Saturday 5th July 2025 where it continues its UK tour.
Photography throughout from Chris Davis.
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