By Neil Durham

WORTH A LOOK?: *****

WHEN? Saturday 14 June, opens 27 June and runs through 6 September 2025 RUNTIME: 150 minutes (with a 20-minute interval)

Zegler may be best known currently as a film star (West Side Story and more recently Snow White) but that is all about to change as she is absolutely sensational in this debut London stage role.

• Read on for reasons including why this is London’s must-see musical of the moment

Director Jamie Lloyd brought his original production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Evita to Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre in 2019.

The cast has changed but the concept remains the same with numbers performed energetically by a youthful, all-singing, all-dancing cast so on point that the effect is like watching high quality pop music videos on repeat on a stage with steps leading up to the orchestra area.

This week Lloyd’s production of Sunset Boulevard won 3 Tonys, including for Nicole Scherzinger as a Best Performance By An Actress In A Leading Role In A Musical, and this Evita is very much in keeping with the spirit of that.

What the Regent’s Park production didn’t have was what appeared to be a pre-filmed, although it may have been live, backstage at the Palladium performance of arguably the show’s best loved song Don’t Cry For Me Argentina which then goes out from the venue’s public balcony looking out onto central London.

It could have been epic but we felt it might have been more impactful had it been from a box inside the theatre but there’s no denying the effect it has on opening out the show played on a giant video screen in front of the orchestra allowing Zegler’s Evita to emerge cleverly from behind it singing next number High Flying, Adored.

Evita‘s a demanding role and Lloyd’s production requires Zegler to both sing and dance with extremely complex choreography but we were wowed by the superb diction, strong singing voice and mesmerising charisma Zegler brought to the role.

We couldn’t take our eyes off her despite the strong performance by Diego Andres Rodriguez as narrator Che who ends the show in only his boxer shorts and covered in paint representing the colours of the Argentinian flag as doubts are raised over the actions of our heroine.

Evita, of course, is based on the true tale of the rise and fall of an Argentinian dictator’s wife who rails against the Establishment while becoming beloved by the public.

We still think it’s odd subject matter but the show is filled with banger after banger, very unusual for Andrew Lloyd Webber, and while the uptempo nature of the musical elevates lesser known tracks like the new in town Buenos Aires our own favourites like the seductive I’d Be Surprisingly Good For You are still well showcased.

We still love the sinister balloon popping of the original Regent’s Park Theatre production which remains here but it is the showstopping performance by Zegler that makes this London’s must-see musical of the moment.

• Main pictures via Facebook courtesy Lloyd Webber Theatres Tickets
• Have you seen Evita before and what did you think of this production? Let us know what you thought in the comments below
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