Beetlejuice the Musical is presented as a retelling of the 1988 Burton film, keeping core supernatural comedy elements while reshaping them into a distinctly 2020s musical theatre style. The production has been a Broadway hit and has generated a large London fan base, including audience members who attend in fancy dress and may know the musical’s songs more than the film. The afterlife concept from the film is reduced to a minor reference rather than a fully developed surreal bureaucracy. The character Beetlejuice is also substantially reconfigured, losing the film’s deranged bio-exorcist energy and becoming a fourth-wall-breaking, meme-spouting stand-up style figure. The changes can feel unambitious to viewers attached to the original vision.
"A lazy criticism levelled at screen-to-stage adaptations is that they're just works of formulaic transposition. But you only have to look at The Lion King - aka the highest-grossing musical in history - to see that's blatantly not always the case. Aussie singer-songwriter Eddie Perfect's all-singing take on the 1988 Burton classic is very definitely a retelling, taking most of the core elements of the supernatural comedy and positioning them together in a very different, very '20s musical theatre way."
"Alas, I am cursed with such knowledge, and despite my desire to be fair about the myriad alterations I can only really write this review from the POV of 'grumpy old man who didn't like how they changed things'. To put it another way, I loved Burton's surreal vision of a preposterously bureaucratic afterlife, and was dismayed that the whole concept is here reduced to a virtual Easter egg. As much as anything, it just feels a bit unambitious not to tackle it."
"Ditto the loss of anything like Michael Keaton's deranged take on 'freelance bio-exorcist' Betelgeuse - the character has been almost unrecognisably reconfigured into a sort of fourth wall-breaking, meme-spouting, supernatural stand-up comedy douchebag (who isn't even a bio-exorcist!). That said, it kind of makes sense: Keaton's Beetlejuice/Betelgeuse was actually only on screen for about 15 minutes."
"Alex Timbers' production was a big Broadway hit and has a cast recording that has clearly begat legions of London fans. Many of them, I'm sure, regard the musical and its songs as the key text and have never even seen the film. For the sizeable number of audience members who turn up to the Prince Edward Theatre in fancy dress, that is enough."
Read at Time Out London
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