Jesus Christ Superstar en el London Palladium: el veredicto de la crítica

Some shows creep into town. Jesus Christ Superstar is not one of them. Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice's rock opera has crashed back into the West End at the London Palladium in the production that first electrified Regent's Park in 2016, went on to win the Olivier Award for Best Musical Revival, and has been touring the world more or less ever since. This time it arrives with a hook guaranteed to fill the stalls: Sam Ryder, the man who reminded the nation it was allowed to enjoy Eurovision, making his stage debut as Jesus of Nazareth.

Press night has been and gone, the critics have filed their copy, and the picture that emerges is genuinely intriguing. On the production, something close to unanimity. On its headline leading man, a very public split.

A staging the critics fell for

Whatever the reviewers made of the casting, almost all of them fell hard for the show around it. Nine years on, Timothy Sheader's revival has lost none of its bite. It is a brooding, muscular, faintly apocalyptic reading of the Passion, played out on Tom Scutt's towering scaffold of a set, a world that is ancient and modern at once, lit up with glitter and rivers of silver liquid. The overture arrives on a wall of grunge guitars, and the ensemble prowl the stage like beautiful survivors of some end-of-days rave.

Drew McOnie's choreography drew particular admiration: angular, trance-like and a little strange, ebbing and flowing through the crowd scenes until the mob feels like a single restless organism. Several critics singled out the staging of the show's darkest moments, where Sheader dials up the drama without ever quite letting go of Lloyd Webber's melodies. The consensus, even among the more reserved notices, was that this is a seriously handsome, seriously confident piece of theatre.

The performances that steal it

If the production has a beating heart, most critics agreed it belongs to Tyrone Huntley's Judas. Huntley is the only member of the 2016 Regent's Park company to return, and the years have only sharpened him. Reviewers described a wiry, anxious, righteous Judas, all sharp edges and restless energy, genuinely rattled by his old friend's claim to be the son of God. The moment he dips his hands in silver paint after taking his thirty pieces of silver was picked out again and again as one of the night's most haunting images.

Desmonda Cathabel, fresh from Hadestown, won warm notices as Mary Magdalene, her "I Don't Know How to Love Him" landing with a stillness that several critics found genuinely moving. There is strong support too from David Thaxton's Pontius Pilate and Bob Harms's Caiaphas. And then there is Herod, the show's one comic cameo, which rotates through a starry roster across the Palladium run, with Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Richard Armitage, Boy George, Layton Williams and Julian Clary all taking a turn on the throne. It is the sort of detail that rewards checking who is on before you book.

The Sam Ryder question

Here is where the critics part company. The debate is not about whether Sam Ryder can sing. On that, the house is united: the voice is thrilling, the falsetto soars, and his "Gethsemane" earned a standing ovation on press night that more than one reviewer noted. The question is whether singing is enough.

In the enthusiasts' corner, Sarah Crompton in WhatsOnStage and Dominic Cavendish in the Telegraph both handed out five stars, finding real emotional force in Ryder's Jesus and arguing that his pop-star presence is precisely the point. For them the sincerity reads as vulnerability, and the climax genuinely lands. The more reserved critics were not persuaded. At three stars, the Guardian's Arifa Akbar, Time Out's Andrzej Lukowski and the Stage's Sam Marlowe admired the voice but felt the acting was adrift, a leading man doing a great deal of conflicted listening while the drama happened around him. Lukowski's line caught the mood of the sceptics neatly: Ryder is a pop star, and the role wants a superstar. Others noted that he sits less comfortably in the lower register, where the sound occasionally thins.

The truth, as ever, sits somewhere between the star ratings. Nobody doubts what Ryder can do with a microphone. The argument is about everything that happens between the songs.

The reviews at a glance

• WhatsOnStage, Sarah Crompton: five stars
• The Telegraph, Dominic Cavendish: five stars
• Evening Standard, Nick Curtis: four stars
• The Independent, Alice Saville: four stars
• The Guardian, Arifa Akbar: three stars
• Time Out, Andrzej Lukowski: three stars
• The Stage, Sam Marlowe: three stars
• The Times, Dominic Maxwell: three stars

Jesus Christ Superstar tickets, dates and venues

The verdict? Book with your eyes open. If you are coming for a note-perfect actor's Jesus, the sceptics may give you pause. If you are coming for one of the most viscerally exciting stagings of a Lloyd Webber classic in years, a genuinely great Judas in Tyrone Huntley and a leading man whose voice can raise the roof, this is an easy recommendation. The five-star reviews are not wrong about the goosebumps, and even the three-star notices concede the show is a spectacle.

The run is short. Jesus Christ Superstar plays the London Palladium until 5 September 2026 before transferring to the Theatre Royal Drury Lane from 16 October 2026 to 9 January 2027, with a UK tour to follow from February 2027. With a rotating Herod and a leading man this in demand, the best seats and the starriest dates will move quickly.

For more of the best musicals in London, from Andrew Lloyd Webber's own The Phantom of the Opera to the newest arrivals at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, browse the full range of West End shows and book with BritishTheatre.