How MJ: The Musical glosses over the scandals that beset the King Of Pop – with even his children appearing awkward at the press night – as critics slam the ‘tedious’ show despite its Broadway casting

After its controversial Broadway launch in 2022, the musical based on the life of  Michael Jackson arrived at the West End to much fanfare earlier this month.

MJ: The Musical opened at London’s Prince Edward Theatre with an all singing all dancing show that glossed over the King Of Pop’s scandals, including numerous child sexual assault allegations. 

Even Michael’s children appeared awkward as they attended the show’s press night on Wednesday, perhaps aware of the subject matter the show noticeably overlooked. 

And despite actor Myles Frost reprising his Tony Award winning role as Michael, critics slammed the ‘tedious’ show and pointed out the ‘very big elephant in the room’.     

Here is everything you need to know about the controversial muscial…. 

A feud-tinged preview night

Michael’s sons Prince and Blanket, together with daughter Paris, turned out for a rare united appearance together on Wednesday’s red carpet – possibly their first public turnout as a trio in over a decade.

Their father died at the age of 50 in 2009 following a cardiac arrest he suffered after having Propofol administered as a sleep aid.

While Prince, 27,  smiled for photographs on the red carpet, Paris, 25, and Blanket, 22, were somewhat more muted as they stared down the flashbulbs of the waiting photographers.

The trio were once all smiles as they were pictured together as youngsters in 2012 – snapped at a handprint ceremony outside Los Angeles’ Chinese Theatre for their father almost 12 years ago.

But since then, years after the singer’s death from a drug-related cardiac arrest, further allegations have emerged against the King of Pop – potentially casting a shadow over his offspring’s lives.

MJ: The Musical portrays Jackson’s life up until 1992, a year before the first sexual abuse allegations against the singer surfaced.

The show’s writer Lynn Nottage – a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner and lifelong Jackson fan -said she wanted to focus on the singer’s music rather than delve into the scandal.

Saying: ‘Do I believe he was a paedophile? I don’t know that I can say one way or the other… It does hurt my heart to think about the possibility that it could be true, and I pray that it isn’t true, and that’s all I can do,’

In 2019 documentary Leaving Neverland saw the late pop star face further accusations of abuse. 

Nottage initially said she found Jackson’s accusers Wade Robson and James Safechuck accounts believable.

But in a later interview said: ‘The men came across as very believable. But here’s the caveat: were they ultimately telling the truth? I cannot 100 per cent say so, because I’m not judge and jury, and it’s not my place to do that.’

She also said: ‘There’s so much story to tell about Michael Jackson that you can’t do it in one musical… We felt that, as a musical, what we wanted to focus on was the music.’

Meanwhile director/choreographer Christopher Wheeldon said that it was ‘a very difficult question to answer’ if he believed Jackson was a child abuser.

The Royal Ballet associate also said he did not think about pulling out of the project after Leaving Neverland was aired.

Dogged by controversy

In 1993, Jackson was accused of molesting 13-year-old boy Jordan Chandler. The case was settled out of court for $22million dollars.

Ten years later, criminal charges were brought against Jackson after a 12-year-old former cancer patient Gavin Arviso also came forward to say he had been abused. But the singer was ultimately acquitted in 2005 following a trial.

Once the trial was over Jackson – who had been facing up to 20 years in prison if convicted on all charges – left the country, moving to the island nation of Bahrain, located in the Persian Sea.

He eventually returned to the United States and had been preparing for his comeback tour in 2009 when he was found unresponsive inside his Holmby Hills home.

In documentary Leaving Neverland  Wade Robson and James Safechuck both bravely described in graphic detail how they were allegedly molested by Jackson as young children. This has been categorically denied by the Jackson estate.

Robson, now a 41-year-old choreographer, met Jackson when he was five years old. He went on to appear in three Jackson music videos. His lawsuit alleged that Jackson molested him over a seven-year period.

Safechuck, now 45, said in his suit that he was nine when he met Jackson while filming a Pepsi commercial. He said Jackson called him often and lavished him with gifts before moving on to sexually abusing him.

Last August, a California appeals court revived lawsuits from the two men. The judges ruled that the men can validly claim that the two Jackson-owned corporations that were named as defendants in the cases had a responsibility to protect them.

Glitzy casting

Having originated the role of Michael in the show’s Broadway production, Myles is once again taking to the stage as the King of Pop in the West End version.

He became the youngest actor in history at the age of 22 to pick up the Best Actor Tony Award for the role in the original Broadway production in 2022, as well as the show also winning three other trophy’s including Best Choreography.

Discussing his role in the show, during a 2022 talk at Montclair State University, Myles shared the tireless lengths he went to in a bid to emulate Michael’s signature moves.

He said: ‘He’s been through a lot of stuff. I really hope people will believe me when I’m talking about certain struggles that I’ve never experienced, that the majority of the world has never experienced.

‘I don’t want people to say ”[oh] this is great acting right now.” I want people to go ”Myles, are you okay?” Like I want people to feel that.’

What are the critics saying?

The Financial Times’ Ludovic Hunter-Tilney slammed the show as ‘tedious’ and ‘trite’.

Saying: ‘The cast members’ singing is generally better than their acting and the backing band is solid’.

‘The evening boils down to a decent Michael Jackson impersonator doing song and dance routines, padded out with an inert storyline, trite dialogue and hagiographic characterisation.

The Guardian’s Anya Ryan described the musical as ‘Sterilised moonwalk’ through the singer’s life in her two star review.

Writing:  ‘Some might be able to separate Jackson’s art from the artist. But as {Myles] Frost took his final bow and the audience leaped to their feet, I felt queasy – bad, even’.

Meanwhile The Evening Standard Nick Curtis wrote:’The best and worst thing about this exhilarating Michael Jackson musical is that it *almost* makes you forget the elephant in the room’.

‘If you can blind yourself to this moral sophistry, [director] Christopher Wheeldon’s production is a superlatively directed and choreographed piece of absolute pizzaz’.

The Telegraph’s Claire Allfree praised the ‘dazzlingly well-executed’ but also pointed out the ‘big elephant in the room’.

Writing: ‘[Myles] Frost [can] dance, capturing precisely Jackson’s sublime, peculiarly agitated grace, his limbs seemingly made from tensile liquid as he thrusts and coils, shimmers and spins, like a man made from air and light, dancing on water’.

‘MJ The Musical is not exactly an apologia, but while it refuses to indulge the tabloid image of Jackson as a freak, it’s arguably guilty of magical thinking in casting him exclusively as a victim’