When MJ the Musical – a major new Broadway show about Michael Jackson – opened earlier this year, a few reviews referenced the same song from the King of Pop’s back catalogue. “In MJ, No One’s Looking at the Man in the Mirror,” ran the headline from The New York Times. “Mesmerising parade of hits doesn’t look in the mirror,” went The Guardian’s. AP News was more direct – “Some thriller, lots bad” – while Vulture went niche, declaring that “MJ Exists in a Hyperbaric Chamber of Denial”. But across the board, critics expressed discomfort at how the show celebrated Jackson seemingly without much scrutiny, ignoring the allegations of child sexual abuse that had dogged him for many years.
Regardless, the show is a huge hit, has won four Tony Awards, and this week came the announcement that MJ will open in London’s West End in 2024 – something that sits strangely with me. Did we really need a new musical about Jackson, someone whose legacy has long been overshadowed? The signs from Broadway suggest that if we did, it wasn’t this one.
