Dark Of The Moon – A New Musical
28 June 2026
Charing Cross Theatre
2.0 out of 5.0 stars
Dark of the Moon is currently running at the Charing Cross Theatre until 8 August. The brand new musical by Jonathan Prince is a tragic love story that delves into the supernatural.
An isolated, rural Appalachian town is thrown into turmoil, when a witch boy from the Smoky Mountains falls in love with one of the young women in town. The two embark on a whirlwind romance while everything around them is falling apart. Can the two worlds of supernatural and human find a way to unite around true love, or are the young lovers fated to heartbreak?
The story sounds fascinating, but is unfortunately let down with very poor writing. The narrative itself feels confused and very juvenile, combining old English folklore with a rural American setting for no discernible reason, set in an unspecified time period that feels pre-industrialisation in plot, but looks very modern judging by the costumes. Add to that a very predictable and formulaic storyline that has the feel of unrefined fan-fiction more than anything, and the heaviest foreshadowing imaginable, and you have an unintentionally silly musical that will need extensive script revisions to be taken seriously.
The two saving graces of the show are the music, and the cast. Juxtaposing bluegrass as sung by the townspeople, and power rock, as sung by the witches, for a dynamic, high energy soundtrack that is strong and gripping throughout. Add to that the incredibly talented cast who show off stunning vocal work and throw their full force into these underdeveloped characters, and there’s a few great moments to enjoy. The highlights are definitely the songs themselves, though they do have quite silly lyrics at times.
Overall, the show left me with three major questions. Why are the supernatural entities called witches and conjurers when they more closely resemble Celtic or old English fairies or sprites? Why is this show set in rural America where very different mythology exists? And lastly, why was the script not edited before staging a full production, to actually create an appealing narrative that makes sense?
