Thriller Live, Lyric Theatre. London. 17th August 2011 We took the children for a summer holiday treat, spent the day in London and ended it with a show. We booked the tickets with Last Minute so they were cheaper than usual. A good job we paid less as I would have been sorely disappointed if I had paid full price. If you are slightly plumper than the average person prepare to be squashed into seats with no room to breath. As luck would have it there were two empty seats next to us so we could space out a little. We were up in the upper circle, Row G so had no-one behind us but plenty in-front of us. When the show began we were to discover what a shame that was. Parts of it were quite interactive and the cast involved the audience. When this happened if you choose to not join in the view is completely obscured. The best thing to do is to purchase best price tickets or hope that you end up in the front rows of the upper circle. To be honest the one saving grace was the young lad that played the part of a young Michael Jackson (Jariq Wooding-Olajorin.) He was a fantastic asset to an otherwise low budget amateur performance. A true rising star ! To begin with there was some narrative about Michael Jackson and his achievements, the cast member doing this narrated through most of the show., but his given script meant that there was no real flow to the narrative. Just random nuggets of information and factoids. I found the choreography very basic. It reminded me of something that I would pay to watch at the local comprehensive school. The cast were not on point, they were all over the place and it was very slap dash. There was an interval at 8.30. During which time I spoke to a couple of other audience members. They all seemed to be as equally disappointed, all of which hoped that it would "liven up " in the second half. Thankfully, it did liven up in part two. For those younger audience members there were more recent and powerful songs. The whole cast seemed to wake up a little and put some effort in. There was a couple of pathetic fireworks and a few more graphics to look at. Nothing major, but better than part 1. In my opinion, if you want something that is show stoppingly awesome, noisy and pleasing to the eye don't bother with Thriller. Really sad that we ended a super day with quite frankly one of the worse shows I have ever seen. Find somewhere in a school that is showing some sort of tribute to the great Michael Jackson. It will be much more satisfying !

We booked with Lastminute.com and received a very good price at the Lyric Theatre, London. The theatre wasn't anywhere near full for a Tuesday in early May i'm not sure if this is normal or a sign the show is running out of steam. We enjoyed it though. The sound, dancing, audience interaction were great. Only the choreography let it down a bit. We found the first half veyr light and entertaining lots of laughs and quick scenes and action. Second half slowed down several times and I thought it could get really boring. However some really good twists and turns sets it up for a rousing ending. A long show but enjoyable. Recommended viewing if you can take some nudity. We wont be going back because we've got 20 other shows to get through this year. Also went to see Mama Mia earlier this year. I thought it was better than cabaret but my wife disagreed. She has a habit of changing her mind so i'm hopeful she'll agree with me in a couple of weeks. 4/5