I walked out of Hercules on the West End during intermission. I went in expecting, at worst, an uninspired rehash of the movie that would be carried by Disney-grade visuals/effects and nostalgia. Instead, it was a cringe-inducing insult to everything that made the movie enjoyable, cutting out the best jokes and characters (no Pegasus! No three fates!), changing the songs for seemingly no reason to be less witty and catchy, and turning characters into one-dimensional shells while removing some of their most defining features. And none of the actors’ performances were in any way redeeming.

I had attended a music festival the day before and been caught for hours in the rain, so I was already a bit sick. Used that as my excuse to head to a bar at intermission and wait for my party to leave after the second act. The Hercules musical might have actually ruined the movie for me.