Description:

**** "QUITE LITERALLY THRILLING" The Stage

**** “A GREAT TONIC IN THESE GLOOMY DAYS” Evening Standard


After 3 UK tours, THRILLER - LIVE! has become one of the biggest selling shows on the West End stage, playing to a packed Lyric Theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue.

Moonwalking as standard, THRILLER - LIVE! is a spectacular, high octane show celebrating the career of Michael Jackson, and the Jackson 5.

Director Gary Lloyd (who has previously worked with artists including Leona Lewis, Will Young, Robbie Williams, Kelly Clarkson and Girls Aloud), has bought together some of Jackson’s biggest hits into a compelling night out. You’ll be dancing in the aisles!

In a career spanning 40 years, Michael Jackson sold an unparalleled 750 million records worldwide with the Thriller album still the world's best-selling recording of all time. THRILLER - LIVE! includes over two-hours of non-stop hit songs in a show that boasts the world-class spectacle that marked their legendary live performances.

THRILLER - LIVE! at the Lyric Theatre is a high octane celebration! You’ll hear your Jackson songs delivered by an exceptionally talented cast and live band, including the smash hits: I Want You Back, I'll BeThere, Show You The Way To Go, Can You Feel It, Rock With You, She's Out Of My Life, Beat It, Billie Jean, Earth Song and of course Thriller plus many more!

Our Review:

What The Papers Say:


“This week saw the 1000th performance of the show that was only supposed to run for four months, and it is good to see that it has lost neither its energy nor its sense of fun. Naturally, since Jackson’s passing, there is a slightly different dynamic to the proceedings but any moments of cloying sentimentality offered by lead vocalist and host Britt Quentin soon give way to the lively celebration.

Jackson’s back catalogue of hits spanning five decades is quite astounding when delivered with such passion. Alex Buchanan bristles with emotion during his rendition of She’s Out of My Life, but its numbers like Shake Your Body Down, Can You Feel It and Billie Jean that get the audience on its feet and dancing.

THRILLER - LIVE! is irrevocably and unapologetically a loud, brash juke-box show, teaming with frenetic choreography, dynamite sounds and particularly great lighting effects. What it may lack in narrative, it more than makes up for in hit songs.”
THE STAGE (2011)


“Thriller Live has been at London's Lyric Theatre since January 2009, but last week, in a tip of the hat to Jackson's -memory, it was relaunched with a new opening, several new songs and "extra ¬choreography". Only those who've seen it before will be able to judge whether the embellishment makes much ¬difference; to a newbie, it feels ¬seamless, extra choreography and all. The revamped opening, in which ¬dancers robotically moonwalk to Gone Too Soon, is ¬laudably restrained, ¬bearing in mind the ¬sentimental depths that could have been plumbed.

There's a meaty musical begging to be written about Jackson's life, but Grant is a fan and keeps the focus on the music. Save for brief ¬segments of narration in the first half, and a dreary audience-¬participation moment when we're divided into groups and made to sing Shake Your Body (Down to the Ground), the entire two hours and 40 minutes is comprised of Jackson/Jackson 5 hits, performed by an array of capable ¬soloists. None looks or sounds much like Jacko, but that's a ¬technicality; THRILLER - LIVE! takes the view that if you want to sing the King of Pop's brilliant tunes, it don't ¬matter if you're black or white – or male or female

The show is a bit too overwhelmed by ¬Jackson's achievement – the ¬description of the Jackson 5 as "the world's first teen sensations" should irk the ¬surviving Beatles, for instance – and ends in the mid-1990s, heavy-handedly tracing his evolution into self-styled healer of the world, with screens ¬showing the words "conflict", ¬"hunger" and "racism". It's a small price to pay, though, for a show that ¬otherwise flags up his greatness as a singer and songwriter.”
THE GUARDIAN (2010)


“...within its narrow limits, the show works well. What most people like most about back-catalogue musicals is the medley of big hits at the end, and in this show the hits just keep on coming, largely glossing over the fact that in recent years Jackson has become ever less impressive as a pop star as he grows more bonkers and messianic.

There is also a terrific band, ranging with aplomb from funk, soul and disco, through candy-rush pop to guitar-led rock.

And by reminding us of Jackson's glory days, rather than the fiasco his private life has become, THRILLER - LIVE! offers a great night out, though the excessive running time means that it doesn't stop until you've had more than enough.”
THE TELEGRAPH (2009)


“It is instead a concert performance by a number of “lead vocalists” and astoundingly agile dancers of an eye watering 32 numbers connected with either his solo career or time in the Jackson 5. It’s a slick package all right, with costume changes galore, strobe lighting and video projections on a weirdly pointillist screen.

The hits just keep coming and we cannot help but tap our feet and jig along in our seats, or raise imaginary cigarette lighters for the drippy duo of Earth Song and Heal the World. The sheer vivacity of director/choreographer Gary Lloyd’s performers is a great tonic in these gloomy days and those dancers must surely burn more calories in an evening than most of us consume in a week.

The hits just keep coming and we cannot help but tap our feet and jig along in our seats, or raise imaginary cigarette lighters for the drippy duo of Earth Song and Heal the World. The sheer vivacity of director/choreographer Gary Lloyd’s performers is a great tonic in these gloomy days and those dancers must surely burn more calories in an evening than most of us consume in a week.”
THE EVENING STANDARD (2009)


“This is great stuff. It makes you want to move around in your seat. I did do that and nearly got arrested for moving around in the seat right next to me. Not my fault. We had to get up and get down in an audience participation re-tread of "Shake Your Body", and some of us did.

It's a shame that Gary Lloyd's production has no theatrical justification whatsoever, but the presentation is so enjoyably theatrical that the objection disintegrates. There's a wonderful catalogue of late Motown, blues and early indie rock that covers a whole era of pop music at its best.

It's all laid down with tremendous funk and fusion of lights, sound and dance moves.”
THE INDEPENDENT (2009)

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