Lord of The Rings: The Musical

N and I went and saw this on Saturday afternoon at The Theatre Royal Drury Lane. It was always an ambitious idea to adapt such a long and complex story into a stage version and as you might expect the story was highly abridged to fit a 3 hour running time. The songs were not very memorable and the acting was okay... however the stage effects were very impressive. N had the fright of her life when an orc crept up behind her and snarled at her. We were sitting on the end of a row in the stalls so she was a prime target! More of orcs prowled around the audience and were actually quite creepy. The actor who played Gollum was typically hamming it up but then I suppose it is difficult not to ham it up. If you haven't read the books or seen the films then you aren't going to follow the stage version as too much is missed out. A couple of points that surprised me were that they touched on the scouring of The Shire and there was a reference to Tom Bombadil... both these details were not included in the films. All in all a good afternoon's entertainment.

Rating: 7/10