MUSICAL: Thriller Live
WHEN Michael Jackson hits the news these days, it is usually for some bizarre eccentricity – the plastic surgery, the ever-whitening skin, dangling his son out of the window – but this new West End show forgets all that and focuses on the music.
Not that the increasingly reclusive singer is himself involved.
While Tito Jackson – that’s Michael’s older brother and one-fifth of the Jackson 5 – came to the press night, this is simply a celebratory “tribute” concert to the man who is possibly the best-known pop star on the planet.
This means there is no back-story whatsoever.
It is two-and-a-half hours of straight Jackson music, stretching back to his 11-year-old beginnings with the Jackson 5 and continuing through to Earth Song by way of Blame It On The Boogie, Rock With You, Beat It, Bad, Billie Jean and more. And what’s wrong with that?
This is the man who has sold more than 750 million records after all and whose classics are nothing short of boogie brilliant.
If you can get past the occasional sincere pronouncement on how Michael is “a visionary and a storytelling genius”, then this is a hugely enjoyable, gloriously upbeat, high-energy show which leaves you chanting “Annie Are You OK? Are You OK, Annie?” as you slip out the door.
There are at least six main Michaels, some attempting to imitate the real thing more than others. If it is occasionally a bit Stars In Their Eyes, Kieran Alleyne makes for an enthusiastic young Jackson, all afro, purple velour flares and fringed waistcoat (“He’s so cute I want to cry,” said my companion) and there is a moon-dancing, crotch-grabbing
lookalike dancer called Ricko Baird, who has doubled for Jacko himself.
The best thing about the show is Denise Pearson, formerly of the now defunct group Five Star, who sounds more like Jackson than the lot of them and who has got her “nuh – uhs” and “yeh, yehs” down to a zealous fine art (her brother Stedman kept cheering proudly in front of me).
Other high points include a slickly choreographed Smooth Criminal and a jokey tribute to the famous Thriller video, complete with werewolf face mask, pyrotechnics and all manner of dancing zombies.
Short of the man himself, what more could any Jackson fan want?
OUR VERDICT 4/5
Lyric Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue, London, 0844 412 4661, until April 12
