The Lord of the Rings – Civic Theatre, 12 November 2024: Review & Photo Gallery

The Lord of the Rings, A Musical Tale is the timeless Tolkien epic as a live concert inside a cinematic experience, the fusion combining into a Big Bang of incandescence.

Even more remarkable is containing the experience into three hours.

We are all familiar with this classic story. A rare epic which stands alongside Odyssey, Iliad, Aeneid, Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained.

Deals with the essential nature of humans. The mortal world entwined with the mythical and magical world of Gods and Immortals

The genesis of this production started in England, and the Watermill Theatre in West Berkshire.

A boutique theatre company which specialises in actor-musician collaborations and perform in front of a 200-seat venue. They won the Theatre of the Year award in 2024, the year they had all their funding cut by the Arts Council of England.

The concept. Make the audience the Hobbits and encompass them in the performance. The show becomes a Folk club hootenanny or shindig.

That concept was a wild success. Then went to the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre to be super-sized. The singularity of Watermill became the explosion.

It opened in Chicago in July of this year. Barely four months later and the Rings lands in what many consider its spiritual home in New Zealand.

Impossible to over-estimate the influence of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings in rebranding the country as Middle Earth.

Just entering the doors of the iconic Civic Theatre, and Hobbits are running around the place. It is Opening Night, and you could confuse them with patrons in costume.

They are spilling off the stage, entertaining themselves and the audience. This is the Shakespearean Globe Theatre experience.

The ground floor seated audience become the groundlings. The common folk who are carousing amongst themselves in raucous amusement. Of course, they become part of the spectacle, as in Shakespeare’s time.

The production has achieved the first objective of making us the Hobbit community. The cast and crew have visited Hobbiton in recent days.

In the most casual way, Bilbo Baggins raises his voice and announces his birthday party. The tale is underway.

Lord of the Rings as a live musical performance is stunning. All instruments are played in real time. There are no backing tracks. The singers are doing it live and there are some superb performances.

Besides acoustic guitars, violins and mandolins, there are cellos, stand-up bass, trombones, and even a harp which is carried with a belt around the neck. Big drums sit atop stage left.

They sound as good as the Pogues, when the Hobbits perform in a tavern scene. Irish and Celtic folk traditions given a punky revving. Jigs and reels.

Three composers provide astonishing depth and variation to the original songs and score.

A.R. Rahman (Slumdog Millionaire), and Christopher Nightingale (Matilda the Musical). Varttina are Finnish Folk musicians who super-charged traditional music in the way the Pogues did.

All the select few Epics centre music in their narrative. Sound is primordial and it is the energy of creation. Harmony is what brings order and enlightenment.

That is why many of us are mad for it and even try and write about it. As much sense as dancing about architecture.

Lord of the Rings is found at the core of legendary bands. Ramble On from Led Zeppelin. In the darkest depths of Mordor/ I met a girl so fair/ But Gollum the Evil One/ Crept up and slipped away with her.

The beating heart of the long tale is the machinations of Good and Evil. The warning that absolute power can only corrupt, no matter how tempting the concept. Existence is then defined by the over-riding need to battle and overcome this.

Of course, Tolkien could not help being influenced by what he experienced in the Great War (before history was rewritten and it as rebranded as WW1).

We still live in the aftershocks of that. The Dada Movement was a direct response from the Art world in1915. Last manifestation to date was the Punk movement.

The history of the writing started in the late Thirties with The Hobbit and becomes a much wider canvas through the Forties. The first Rings volume was published in 1954.

This parallels the experience of Orwell. Both authors have written visionary and prescient literature which are dominant influences for good on the world today.

Best definition of evil. When good men do nothing, stay silent. This is always upon us. Frodo Baggins, Samwise Gamgee, Pippin and Merry are good men.

The pacing of the narrative verges on brilliant. The writers Shaun Mckenna and Matthew Warchus set a fast pace, while preserving quiet tender moments.

Story-telling and original music makes this production a unique experience over and above what has gone before in movies, graphic novels, other stage versions.

A big debt to Peter Jackson for inspiration. Stunning special effects and visuals you need to experience without spoilers. There are Orcs, Wraiths from the Dark Lord, creatures which emanate out from the stage and threaten to engulf the Civic.

I will mention the arrival of Gollum which begins Act Two. The portrayal is directly from the movie, with an added layer of Nosferatu. Despite having a demonic presence, he captures your heart. Does try and steal the show every time he appears.

The emotional core is the relationship between Frodo and the arch wizard Gandalf. Gollum completes the triad.

The staging is immense and the setting of the historic Civic is perfect. It was saved from demolition many years ago. Jackson had great fun destroying it with his King Kong.

Can’t help but he in awe of the massive crew needed to put this together. From sound stage to lighting crews, riggers, special effects team. The scale of a large movie production set.

Lord of the Rings, A Musical Tale will do it every night up to 2nd December inclusive.

Rev. Orange Peel

Purchase tickets by going to
The Lord of the Rings – A Musical Tale

Photography by Leonie Moreland