I don't write many reviews. I have to be really compelled to do and this time I had to in the hope I'll save one poor sod from this tripe.

I love music, I love film and I like the odd musical, not as much as opera albeit. This fails on all fronts. All the songs are that overly glossy, auto-tune ridden, derivative, glee-style trash that's so uninspiring. Just like the subject matter itself, there's loads of high production staging, choreography, CGI, etc. to make up for the lack of song writing skill. The big "never never" song cones close to decent (notice zero choreography) and the bearded lady's big number is ok but that's just because of proper vocal talent.

It's so bad my interest waned after the 2nd song but I forced myself to see it through for a fair judgement. I've watched all of Cats for pity's sake! This is almost as bad. The pitiful story wraps up super fast with no real character development and I couldn't look past it was such a glossing of PT Barnum who was known to be of an unpleasant personality.

Do yourself a favour and skip this. Go watch les mis or something properly good.