You don’t expect to see audience members dragged out of the theatre and security get booed for doing so. You don’t expect the audience to stand up and dance in protest. But this is a rock musical - well, it's meant to be.
Biopics and musicals focused around the troubled lives of the famous have become commonplace, and Moonlight tries something different. The production by John and Deniella Merrigan with FatDan focuses on the land of poets between heaven and hell.
We begin with his death at 36, what is the story of Philip Lynott? Peter M. Smith’s portrayal is scripted like a Wikipedia page and lacks depth into the artist. It focuses on factual recounting and tries to weave in that he was a sensitive poet.
The warm-up act is Eric Bell, from the original line-up of Thin Lizzy, as himself. His initial presence hypes the crowd, only for the show to waste it with the introduction of Oscar Wilde.
Padraig O’Loingsigh (House of Guinness) as Brendan Behan has the most stage presence, but his role is to be the drunk talk show host, and the conversations slip into an unnatural rhythm of information and facts.
Wilde and Behan are forcibly linked with Lynott as we recount his life through postcards to his mother, played by the West End icon, Mazz Murray (Donna in Mamma Mia!) as Philomena Lynott. But the lighting team let her down as they failed to operate the follow-spot. She has to find the light herself, like the pro she is, only to be let down again in act two with tinny sound engineering.
By starting with his death, the show lacks pace and momentum. Act One is so dull that two reviewers beside me left.
Act Two picks up the pace with more songs, but the ending falls over itself as it attempts to turn what feels like tribute act back into a musical. Many audience members began leaving when Oscar Wilde turned up again.
The limitations of the staging budget leave a bench on set for the entire show in front of the band. This odd physical barrier between frontman and support could have been easily remedied. The bar is nothing but a digital screen and a black cloth, it’s dismal.
Smith’s vocals as Lynott are fantastic, but he’s glued to the spot in almost every song and it becomes repetitive and dull. The backing band has more presence.
The show needs a rewrite to put in action and pace, it does not need to be over two and a half hours. It would have worked much better focused on his mother re-reading the postcards he sent and listening to his songs.
Our audience was not a theatre audience; it was an audience full of fans, and the talk in the auditorium made it clear. This did not tell Lynott’s story well.
Review: James Dix Photo: Cormac Figgis