The not-so-Dark Knight

I said on Tuesday I'd review the Batman stage show before the end of the week, so here goes...

So after months of waiting, I finally got to see the Batman: Live Arena tour on Saturday. I’d booked the tickets the day that they were released so I’d managed to get seats five rows from the front looking straight at the stage. The seats were great, we were really close, the only drawback being that as the Gotham City seats weren’t stadium style, it meant that you had to look over/around the people in front of you.

The whole experience was greatly enhanced by the fact that I’d booked our group tickets for the Sky VIP bar beforehand, which meant bypassing the queues and then chilling out before and after the show in the luxurious bar that (whilst crazy expensive) does have a free pool table, really nice seats, free massages (if you can be bothered to queue up), free face painting and a 3D recording studio where you can sing along to a song whilst your friends can see you on a 3D screen. There’s also a great amount of fun to be had posing in front of the paparazzi wall with your friends (pictured below).

As for the show itself, it was great fun. Moving away from the darkness of the Christopher Nolan films, the tone was much more child friendly, with a few laughs thrown in for good measure. The feel of the show was like Cirque du Soleil starring Batman characters, as the first half is primarily based around the circus where Dick Grayson’s parents are killed. The show has a bit of a panto vibe, with audiences cheering for their favourite characters when they appear for the first time. For example, I was very please to see Poison Ivy, although do have somewhat of a crush on Harley Quinn now.

The primary characters of the show are Batman, Robin, Joker, Harley and Catwoman, with support from Two Face, The Riddler, The Penguin, The Scarecrow, Ivy, Alfred and Commissioner Gordon. Personally I would have liked to have seen more of Two Face, but the context of show didn’t really allow for that. The guy playing The Joker is outstanding, making him like the character from the comics rather than trying to emulate Heath Ledger. As mentioned above, the woman playing Harley was the other stand out performance, she had lifted the voice directly from Batman: The Animated Series, however this was by no means a bad thing.

The really fantastic parts of the show were the set pieces, the bulk of which were in act two. I will warn that the below contains spoilers, so if you don’t want any turn away now.

First of all, the Joker’s first appearance inside a Jack-in-the-box looked amazing. All of the joker scenes upped the anti from there, with the Joker’s face looking brilliant and finally the Joker balloon (which is subsequently engulfed in flames) being the show stealer. I thought that the brief appearance of the scarecrow was also really well done - it was just a guy on stilts, but as Batman had been subjected to the Scarecrow gas, it worked. And then there was the Batmobile. Everyone cheered for the Batmobile. It’s not in it much, but by God, they’ve included the Batmobile in the show.

All in all, it’s a really great night. They’ve gone for a comic book / cartoony vibe and it really works. If you’re a massive Batman geek like me, then it’s an incredible experience, but even if you’ve only got a passing interest in the Caped Crusader, I still think you’d get a lot out of it.

The real Batman doesn’t pose. He just smirks and looks nonplussed whilst wondering why he’s surrounded by geeky idiots.