Muscles, Muses, and Missed Opportunities

Hercules at Theatre Royal Drury Lane | booking until 28^th March, 2026

Muscles, Muses, and Missed Opportunities
I went the distance – and honestly, I wish I hadn’t.

Disney’s Hercules has opened at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane and will be there until the beginning of next year. It’s a fabulous venue, a famous story, a muscle-bound leading man in a white miniskirt, and some cracking tunes from the original 1997 animated film. It really ought to be good fun. But despite all that, I found myself wondering if panto season had come early.

First, the basics. The original Hercules film – remember that? Gospel-singing Muses, Meg with her sharp wit, James Woods giving it all as Hades, and Danny DeVito playing a grumpy goat-man trainer named Phil. It was colourful, cheeky, and carried one of Alan Menken’s most uplifting scores. “Go the Distance” was even Oscar-nominated, and rightly so. So, when Disney brings it to the stage, you’d expect them to go big. Think The Lion King, or at least Aladdin.

Which brings me to the team. This version is directed and choreographed by Casey Nicholaw, the man behind The Book of Mormon, Something Rotten! and Disney’s stage Aladdin. A director who knows how to put razzle in the dazzle. Alan Menken and David Zippel are back with new songs alongside the old ones. Add in a book from Robert Horn (Tootsie) and Kwame Kwei-Armah, and you’ve got real pedigree.

And yet, for all that creative sparkle, I couldn’t shake the feeling that what we’ve ended up with is a watered-down version of what this could have been. The show leans heavily into panto-style humour – and not always the good kind. There’s a gag about single mothers which made little sense and didn’t raise a laugh. And the villains – well, instead of Pain and Panic, we get Bob and Charles. That might sound like a joke. It isn’t.

Luke Brady, who plays Hercules, is in tremendous shape, which helps, since he spends most of the evening in a string vest and skirt combo. You might remember him from The Prince of Egypt. He’s got the voice for “Go the Distance” and a Tom Cruise smile that could light up Drury Lane even if the lights went out. Trevor Dion Nicholas plays Phil and brings all the energy you’d expect. There’s also a frighteningly fit male chorus, bounding around the stage with gleaming six-packs, reminding me it’s time to renew my gym membership.

The Muses do make a welcome return, and they belt out the show’s best numbers with energy and style, although a lot of the lyrics get lost in the very muddy sound mix. It’s one of the few times the evening feels properly alive and a reminder of what this show could be if it trusted its source material a little more and its own gags a little less.

But where’s the imagination? In the film, Phil is a goat-like creature, on stage, he’s just a man. The creatures are disappointing puppets, disconnected heads and bodies, not even a nod to the way Disney used puppets and design magic in The Lion King and more like what you would expect in a theme park show. You’ve got a show filled with gods, beasts and mythical beings and yet it looks oddly lost at times on the vast Drury Lane stage.

And can someone explain why everyone has an American accent? We’re meant to be in ancient Greece, yet the entire cast, gods, mortals and Muses alike, speak in American accents. Maybe Mount Olympus has been relocated to middle America.

The new songs, I’m sorry to say, are forgettable, you tend to forget them even whilst they are being sung. There’s plenty of energy and movement, but very little that lingers in the mind once you’ve left your seat.

I went in hoping for Hercules the musical. I got Hercules the panto that is very much aimed at young children. Nothing wrong with that, but with a ticket price worthy of the gods, that’s disappointing.

So, my advice? Keep your distance. You won’t see that quoted on the side of a London bus, but that doesn’t mean it’s wrong!

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