REVIEW: DYSTOPIA - THE ROCK OPERA @ LEICESTER SQUARE THEATRE

🎭 Dystopia: The Rock Opera

📍 Leicester Square Theatre, 6 Leicester Place, London, WC2H 7BX

🗓 Friday 17th July 2026

⭐️ 1 Star

TRAINWRECK IN DYSTOPIA

Walking through Leicester Square before a show, you usually expect a certain West End buzz. What you don’t expect is the sight of people out in the square aggressively barking, desperately trying to get passers-by into the theatre. Right away, I had to ask myself: is this a good sign or a total red flag? Spoiler alert: it was the latter.

I'm not going to lie, the premise and concept of DYSTOPIA: THE ROCK OPERA genuinely intrigued me. When done well, political satire can be some of the funniest and most brilliant theatre you can see. The show aims to poke fun at our current geopolitical nightmare by trapping the audience inside a literal factory prison run by an authoritarian regime. Unfortunately, this production seemed to get everything completely wrong.

The heavy-handedness starts the second you walk in. We were handed flags and badges, informed that we are now proud residents of Dystopia. Inside the auditorium, we were greeted by walls of propaganda posters featuring the regime's leader, President Blame.

Those posters, and the graphics used throughout the evening, were a major warning sign. Throughout the entire show, screens at either end of the stage blasted posters and videos. The glaring problem? Everything was blatantly created using AI. If I'm honest, I find this disgusting. AI has no place in the creative arts. Not only does it look terrible, but it actively denies hard-working human creatives actual jobs. We have to stand up against this. It’s unimaginative, it’s boring, and it completely cheapens the look of a professional production. Seeing it used so prominently made me genuinely angry.

The production also included a video clip of Nigel Farage, which was just annoying. The team had obviously paid him through Cameo or a similar service to record a shout-out. I guess, at the very least, it wasn’t AI!

That aside, the onstage action was simply no better. The "hard-hitting" political satire basically boiled down to spurting out recent news headlines. It didn't dig deep at all. It just tried to lazily cram in every single current event it could think of, resulting in some extremely poor writing.

The show was led by Justin Skelton, who unfortunately just did not have the voice or the commanding stage presence required to carry a two-hour performance. In fact, there was zero energy coming from the stage, and I found myself staring at those hideous AI screens for the most part just to find something to look at.

Fiona Lynch was the only person on that stage who brought any sort of energy. I felt incredibly sorry for her, giving it her absolute all while the rest of the stage was completely flat. Again, she didn't have the strongest lead vocals, but her backing vocals and harmonies did add a much-needed lift to the musical numbers - none of which were memorable. I couldn't hum the tune to one of them today!

The creative choice to have despicable world leaders make up the live band was just weird. The musicians wore full rubber masks of Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, and Kim Jong Un. Because Trump was literally sitting right there on bass, having the main character, President Blame, act as a Trump-esque caricature made absolutely no narrative sense.

As a massive technical theatre nerd, I was holding out hope that the production elements might be the saving grace. Unfortunately, the sound design was abysmal. I couldn't hear a vast majority of the vocals because the band constantly drowned them out. Pair that with a lackluster, uninspired lighting design, and the whole thing was just a deeply disappointing experience.

As someone who sees a massive amount of theatre - this was actually theatre visit 147 of the year for me - I have to say that this is easily one of the worst things I have sat through in 2026.

The response from the rest of the audience was mixed. I saw a noticeable number of people making a swift exit during the interval - something I would have probably joined them in doing if I wasn't there to review it. Though, to be fair, about 50% of the remaining audience were up on their feet cheering at the final curtain.

I guess it entirely depends on what you want from a night at the theatre, but for me, there were simply no redeeming features here. It was boring, unfunny, and quite simply, car crash theatre.

Neill Kovacic-Clarke

All views are my own and I pride myself on being honest, fair and free from influence. Theatre is subjective and it is important to remember that all views expressed are just those of one reviewer.  

My ticket for this performance of Dystopia: The Rock Opera was gifted by Valerie Potter Tour PR who invited me to watch the show in exchange for my honest review. The fact that my ticket was gifted played no part in the content of my review or the star rating given. 

CAST:

Justin Skelton as Beldon Haigh; Fiona Lynch as Helen Raiser; Dru Baker as President Blame / Magnanimous Moon; Martin Barnaby as Trump Chicken; JT Stevens as Kim Jong Elvis; Anna Fettes as Polonium Putin

RUNNING TIME (approx):

1 hour 55 minutes, including interval

CONTENT WARNINGS:

Strong language; Political satire; Dark dystopian humour

AGE RECOMMENDATION:

14+

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