Review Roundup: COME ALIVE! THE GREATEST SHOWMAN CIRCUS SPECTACULAR at the Empress Museum

Come Alive! The Greatest Showman Circus Spectacular is now playing at London's Empress Museum in Earls Court. The cast is led by Simon Bailey as The Showman, alongside Aaliya Mai as Max. Singers in the show include Jaz Ellington, Charlotte-Hannah Jones, Whitney Martins, and Fallon Mondlane.

Come early for the interactive pre-show experience; enjoy close-up performances, curious characters and savour delicious food and drink. Then take your seats in a 700-seat Big Top where circus meets musical theatre in an epic Spectacular featuring a brand-new story inspired by the 20th Century Fox Motion Picture and featuring all the hit songs by Pasek and Paul including ‘This Is Me', ‘Rewrite the Stars', ‘A Million Dreams', and more. 

‘COME ALIVE!' features the finest international circus stars and musical theatre talent from the West End. At the helm of the production is Drama Desk award-winning Creative Director Simon Hammerstein.

As co-founder of The Box and the mastermind behind Usher's sold-out ‘My Way' Las Vegas Residency and producer of Queen of the Night, Hammerstein brings his unique flair and live experience expertise to ‘COME ALIVE!'.  

Hammerstein is joined on the creative team by Music Producer and Olivier Award-nominated Matthew Brind, Lead Choreographer Jerry Reeve and Emmy Award-nominated Lighting Designer Adam Bassett for Woodroffe Basset Design (The Rolling Stones - ‘SIXTY' Tour 2022, London 2012 Olympics Opening Ceremony, Adele - Live). See what the critics are saying...

Franco Milazzo, BroadwayWorld: The circus itself is, in the main, entertaining without being in any way memorable or groundbreaking. Circus choreographers Tilde Björfors and Mattias Andersson play it far too safe given the quality of the cast and the facilities (one of the updates to the venue was adding a huge mother truss to support the rigging). Some parts feel more plastic than organic and there’s rarely a genuine wow factor. There is very little on display that really stands out from what can be seen in big tops up and down the land. When the story calls for explosive action, Björfors and Andersson cram too much in with dazzling aerialists pitching and yawing above busy ground-based colleagues. creating a confusing and overloaded panorama. On press night, the trapeze act and the teeterboard piece both ended in very noticeable mistakes; in the latter case, the team decided to repeat the last segment while the next set of acrobats awkwardly waited in the background; whether this is a sign of general nerves or backstage shenanigans is hard to tell.

Chris Wiegand, The Guardian: These are copper-bottomed songs but there aren’t enough for a show that, at 100 minutes, is more than twice the length of the soundtrack. Some of them are done a disservice by becoming additional rinky-dink instrumentals. While creative director Simon Hammerstein has engineered a spirited experience, it lacks a knockout performance. You can’t help but notice that Keala Settle from the film is headlining a much cheaper musical elsewhere in town.

Andrzej Lukowski, Time Out: Arguably the circus is mostly there as something to look at to accompany the songs, although rather than just random setpieces, Hammerstein’s show attempts to extrapolate a plot from the tunes. Which is a bit peculiar when you consider they’re already part of the plot of The Greatest Showman, but Come Alive is attempting to extrapolate a different plot from them. Admittedly a lot of the appeal of the film’s soundtrack is down to the fact the songs aren’t very specific, lyrically speaking. Nonetheless, it’s often bizarre to hear them rearranged into a wafer-thin, bordering-on-incoherent story that has nothing to do with PT Barnum, but rather something about a young woman named Max who visits the circus with her boyfriend, takes on the mantle of The Greatest Showman from the previous holder, and then possibly feels a bit guilty about the whole thing.

Annie, Theatre & Tonic: The acrobat performers are next level in terms of talent. Featuring all the tricks you’d hope to see in a show, but reimagined in an ‘old circus style’ way - the show feels as much of its era as much as it does modern - lending itself to potentially becoming a timeless production that could easily be lifted and lowered onto a new plot. I continuously found myself on the edge of my seat as they performed nail-biting stunts. I don’t think I've been that engaged with a show in a long time

Paul Vale, The Stage: Working on the assumption that nobody goes to the circus for the plot, director Hammerstein and choreographers Jerry Reeve and Lukas McFarlane throw everything into some astounding acrobatics and a succession of spectacular set pieces. There are aerialists, acrobats, trapeze artists and fire jugglers. A team of expressive vocalists and dancers is woven into the action, bringing to life the movement and sounds of the movie. It has to be one of the most intense circus experiences ever. On occasion, this leads to a lack of focus, with so much going on in the ring at once that it’s difficult to know where to look.

Alan Fitter, LondonTheatre1: In Come Alive! there are amazing acrobats, jugglers, tightrope and slack rope walkers, a performer suspended in the rafters by her hair, people doing fantastic somersaults twenty feet up after bouncing on a seesaw, others rolling around in neon hoops – the energy could have lit up the whole of the Earls Court area. However one of the problems was that it was often all going on at the same time you didn’t know where to look and also weaved amongst all of this was the nebulous narrative that didn’t seem to have much point. As well as all the circus performers there were some excellently choreographed dancers, three superb singers (Charlotte Hannah-Jones, Whitney Martins and Fallon Mondlane) and a five-piece band who sounded and felt like a lot more!

Caroline McGuire, The Sun: The performance takes part in a big top, following a young girl called Max who discovers her potential as a showman. But while the plot is pretty weak, the big budget song and dance spectacles and the circus exhibitions that go alongside them are truly brilliant. You’ve never seen a circus show like this before - the big songs, recognisable from the blockbuster movie that inspired it - feel like Hollywood-style performances. And the acts are top tier. We watched strongmen bounce each other into the sky, an acrobat spin 40ft high by her hair and an incredible fire display that saw a woman set fire to her body… on purpose.