MJ the Musical is moonwalking into the West End – but how do you tell a story like Michael Jackson’s?

A Monument to Misconduct” splashed the Theatrely website. “Very Smooth, Somewhat Criminal” echoed the New York Stage Review. “No One’s Looking at the Man in the Mirror” attested The New York Times. When the notices for the Broadway opening of Christopher Wheeldon and Lynne Nottage’s Michael Jackson jukebox jamboree MJ the Musical landed in 2022, many gushed about the “megawatt” music and its eye-popping dance routines, but few could get around the curtained-off elephant in the auditorium.

With the Jackson estate involved in the production, MJ the Musical is told in flashback from an endpoint of 1992’s tour, one year before the surfaced against pop’s biggest and most enigmatic superstar. This naturally made for a conflicted watch for many critics, particularly since two journalists are cast as the villains of the piece for asking him intrusive questions about his monkey friends and plastic surgery, and a real-life reporter was ejected from the premiere for asking the cast about the allegations.