Like its demigod hero, Disney’s Hercules musical loses its divine status in clumsy hands

Hero to zero: The musical adaptation of ‘Hercules’ fails to replicate the magic of its source material - (Johan Persson/Disney)

Disney made Hercules in its boldest era, the 1990s – the time when it pensioned off those one-dimensional princesses and sanctimonious woodland critters in favour of fresher stories. The film’s gloriously leftfield take on Ancient Greece converted the muses into a gospel choir, sketched its characters with the spiky clarity of amphora paintings, and turned this hero’s rise into a pacy satire of celebrity culture. Unfortunately, there’s none of the same imaginative energy in this stodgy new stage version, which hits the expected beats without capturing the lovable zaniness that makes Hercules a fan fave.

Shivering in terror at Hades and his monstrous hellions was a core Nineties childhood experience, but even a dish of Angel Delight wouldn’t tremble at Stephen Carlile’s telly host-esque evocation of the ruler of the underworld – Carlile feels as though he’s trading in kitchen gadgets on QVC, not tormented human souls. Disappointingly, they’ve cut the original’s crone-tastic trio of Fates (when will older women in musical theatre catch a break?) with Hades instead hacking away at ropes representing human lives, while two silk scarves floating in a pyramid of light inadequately represent the innumerable souls in his dominion.