Reviews are coming out from London’s theatre critics for Jamie Lloyd’s new production of EVITA at the London Palladium, starring Rachel Zegler.
Read reviews from the Financial Times, Guardian and more, with further reviews to be added.
Directed and reimagined by Jamie Lloyd (Sunset Boulevard, A Doll’s House), who originally directed Evita at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s hit musical is now playing at the London Palladium until 6 September 2025.
Evita stars Golden Globe winner Rachel Zegler (West Side Story, Snow White) as Eva Perón, and Diego Andres Rodriguez (Sunset Boulevard), who is making his West End debut as Che.
Evita – A New Argentina. Photo by Marc Brenner
The cast also includes James Olivas (American Idiot) as Juan Perón, Aaron Lee Lambert (Hamilton) as Agustín Magaldi and Bella Brown (Hadestown) as The Mistress / Alternate Eva.
The Ensemble of Evita includes Carl Au, Gabriela Benedetti, Shakara Brown, Damian Buhagiar, Kyeirah D’Marni, Sally Frith, DeAngelo Jones, Lucas Koch, Natasha Leaver, Michael Lin, Dianté Lodge, Louis Mackrodt, Mireia Mambo, Mia Mullarkey, Perry O’Dea, Alysha Sontae, Monica Swayne, Jon Tsouras and Harrison Wilde, with Myla Carmen, Barney Hudson, Nathan Louis-Fernand, Kirsty Anne Shaw, Ricardo Spriggs and Regan Bailey Walker as Swings. Auora Breslin, Lois Haidar, Siena Merilind-Wu and Ffion Rosalie Williams share the role of The Child.
Evita has music by Andrew Lloyd Webber and lyrics by Tim Rice, and is the rags to riches true story of Argentina’s first lady, Eva Perón. The show features musical numbers including “You Must Love Me”, “Another Suitcase in Another Hall”, “Oh! What A Circus”, and showstopper “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina”.
Evita – Rachel Zegler and company. London Palladium. Photo by Marc Brenner
Joining Jamie Lloyd in the creative team are: Choreography by Fabian Aloise, Set and Costume Design by Soutra Gilmour, Music Supervision and Musical Direction by Alan Williams, Lighting Design by Jon Clark, Sound Design by Adam Fisher, Casting by Will Burton CDG, US Casting by Jim Carnahan, Wigs, Hair and Make-up Design by Carole Hancock, Children’s Casting/Children’s Administration by Harry Blumenau, Fight Direction by Kate Waters, Props Supervision by Lily Mollgaard, Intimacy Coordination by Ingrid Mackinnon, Associate Direction by Rupert Hands, Associate Choreography by Amy Thornton, Resident Direction by Cory Hippolyte, Resident Choreography by Paris Green, Associate Set Design by Rachel Wingate, Associate Sound Design by Kelsh B-D, Associate Lighting Design by Lucía Sánchez Roldán, Costume Supervision by Rachel Woodhouse, Assistant Sound Design by Harry Barker, and Orchestral Management by Andy Barnwell and Rich Weedon for BW Musicians.
Evita is produced by Michael Harrison for Lloyd Webber Harrison Musicals and The Jamie Lloyd Company with The Really Useful Group.
Evita is now playing at the London Palladium, until 6 September 2025.
Book tickets to EVITA at the London Palladium
What are the critics saying about Evita?
The Independent
★★★★★
“Rachel Zegler is enthralling as Evita in this gorgeous sensory overload of a show”
“The ‘West Side Story’ star beautifully portrays the divisive Argentinian figure of the musical’s title”
“News that Rachel Zegler would sing “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina” from the Palladium’s ornate balcony, entertaining the weary shoppers on the streets below instead of the paying audience inside, was initially met with a certain amount of disapproval. Now, however, director Jamie Lloyd’s gambit looks less like a gimmick, more like the musical theatre stunt of the century, as vast crowds gather nightly for a free dose of a pricey, potentially exclusionary artform.”
“… this populist gesture is emblematic of Jamie Lloyd’s big, bold, stadium rally of a staging, with its virtuoso star Zegler romancing a rapt audience both inside and outside the theatre’s walls.”
“There’s something deeply queasy about applauding Evita… Lloyd leans into that sickly quality by making this production too much in every sense: too loud, too bright, too sexual.”
“Her voice has an emotive purity to it that captures the spoilt, childlike quality of the super-rich, too used to adoration to be able to contemplate life without it. Zegler beautifully portrays Evita as a natural performer who effortlessly acts her way out of small-town mediocrity”
“… Diego Andres Rodriguez lends a puppyish sweetness to the character, in thrall to this woman even as he calls out her worst excesses.”
“… this gorgeous sensory overload of a show is its own comment on the rising tide of fascism. Populism is sexy, captivating, overpowering – a way for weary people to escape the dull realities of right and wrong. You know there’s something deeply twisted under that pretty shiny surface, but, like the audiences of Evita, you’re powerless to resist.”
Alice Saville, The Independent
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The Evening Standard
★★★★★
“Ignore the haters, Rachel Zegler is an absolute smash in Jamie Lloyd’s Evita at London Palladium”
“The balcony scene is a bravura piece of social commentary from Jamie Lloyd, while Fabian Aloise’s muscular choreography reeks of sex”
“Rachel Zegler is an absolute smash in Jamie Lloyd’s thrilling revival of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s improbable hit musical about Argentina’s populist, postwar first lady Eva Perón. The 24-year-old packs an impossible amount of slyly insouciant star power into her tiny frame and proves to have both stage presence and a passionate, expressive vibrato — amazingly, this is only her second major professional theatre role, after playing Juliet on Broadway last year.”
“… when she performs Don’t Cry for Me Argentina from the Palladium balcony to a crowd outside — relayed to paying punters in the auditorium on a screen — is a bravura piece of directorial panache and social commentary from Lloyd.”
“Rainbow High, given full welly by Zegler, is a banger.”
“If the sexual politics sound stuck in the 1970s, she’s not the only one objectified. Evita’s flirtatious, revolutionary opponent Che is played with cocksure swagger by Diego Andres Rodriguez”
“Great theatre can be about many things: star quality, spectacle, the lightning-in-bottle capture of a moment, the alchemical power of song or speech on a bare stage. In this Evita, all those things come triumphantly together.”
Nick Curtis, The Evening Standard
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The Financial Times
★★★★★
“Rachel Zegler is a stunning Eva Perón in Jamie Lloyd’s pulsating new Evita”
“Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical is boldly reframed for today inside the London Palladium — plus a view from the street of ‘Don’t Cry for Me Argentina’”
“Balcony scenes have become a thing for director Jamie Lloyd… It’s stunning: the apex of a show that, like Lloyd’s Sunset Boulevard, boldly reframes a much-loved musical for today. Together with designer Soutra Gilmour and choreographer Fabian Aloise, Lloyd rips away period detail to stage a pulsating, contemporary spectacle — smoke, streamers, dazzling lights, bodies gleaming with sweat”
“Musical director Alan Williams brings raw emotion and sharp definition to the score. The whole thing is perched queasily between superstar arena concert and populist political rally.”
“There is a price to pay for this approach: the intense volume can feel relentless, you lose too many of Tim Rice’s sharp, witty lyrics and, with them, some narrative clarity. But it viscerally expresses the heady nature of populism and the tip into authoritarianism”
“… coursing underneath all of Eva’s ambition, Zegler suggests vulnerability and a deep desire for validation. Her reprise of that signature anthem is tremendous: this time there’s no ballgown, no crowd, just one final plea to believe her.”
Sarah Hemming, The Financial Times
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The Telegraph
★★★★★
“Rachel Zegler is perfection in a dazzling revival”
“Jamie Lloyd’s scantily-clad take on the Andrew Lloyd Webber classic delivers the oomph of a rock gig and the fervour of a political rally”
“The result is a total triumph, dominated by a powerhouse, reputation-restoring performance from Zegler, 24, and stamina-testing choreography by Fabian Aloise (who deserves equal credit with Lloyd).”
“The wow-factor is knowingly pushed to the max here, both on the Palladium stage and on its outdoor balcony, where Zegler draws nightly crowds in the street below for her impactful mid-show rendition of Evita’s signature tune, Don’t Cry For Me Argentina”
“Her talent demands our rapture; equally, her mass seduction of the audience feels carefully plotted, enhancing the show’s thematic thrust. Lloyd ensures the evening stokes a cult of personality – combining whistle-stop biography with a parable for our age of showbiz politics.”
“Diego Andres Rodriguez’s beautifully expressive Che (loosely, Guevara)”
“Exuding self-possession, Zegler can dance nimbly in step with the tireless entourage… But she is most transfixing while doing the least”
“This ranks as an all-time great revival. Viva Evita! Viva Zegler!”
Dominic Cavendish, The Telegraph
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The Stage
★★★★★
“Rachel Zegler is astonishing”
“Rachel Zegler stars in a staggeringly exciting reinvention of the popular musical”
“… it’s punchier, darker, more exhilaratingly dynamic and more brilliantly layered than ever. It is meta, without being arch, and while it has the raw energy and high-octane energy of a rock gig, it’s also full-bloodedly theatrical. It knocks the breath from your body and leaves you gasping, every moment taut and vibrating with passionate intensity.”
“As her history unfolds in the show’s narrative of extended flashback, neither Zegler nor Lloyd is too concerned with winning our sympathy, still less our affection or approval.”
“Zegler’s astonishing vocals, swooping between sweetness and grit, are as undeniable as her megawatt charisma. She’s potently matched by Diego Andres Rodriguez as Che”
“What surrounds this central pair is staggering. The ensemble is at once a faultlessly drilled machine and a collection of vividly realised individuals, and Fabian Aloise’s choreography is insanely exciting – sexy, sweaty, muscular and acrobatic.”
“As the camera pans over the eager onlookers – many of them also filming on their phones – and zeroes in on her face, tears stream down Zegler’s cheeks. But in the next breath she’s sneaking a crafty glance at the lens to check it’s following her, her savvy image-building exposed… It’s a terrific interplay between ideas of theatricality, celebrity and the pantomime of populist politics.”
Sam Marlowe, The Stage
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Daily Express
★★★★★
“Rachel Zegler triumphs in Evita and lays ghost of Snow White to rest”
“Believe the hype, Rachel Zegler is spectacular in Jamie Lloyd’s adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Evita.”
“This is not just a great production of Evita but one of the most exciting musicals I have witnessed in years.”
“… he gets everything right. The music is thunderous yet clear – the band ranging from sumptuous semi-orchestral pomp to full-blooded stadium rock in the blink of an ear, with Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s superb songs sounding freshly minted. Everyone’s a winner, baby, that’s for sure.”
“Fabian Aloise’s choreography is athletic and restlessly inventive in Bob Fosse’s All That Jazz style and performed by an astonishingly supple ensemble. Diego Andres Rodriguez invests Che with scorchio sexuality, James Olivas as Perón is fiercely buttoned up until released by Eva. Both convey emotional weight as well as vocal power. Bella Brown as the discarded mistress pours her soul into Another Suitcase in Another Hall.”
“And at the heart of it all is Rachel Zegler who owns the stage from the moment she appears”
“After his extraordinary reboot of Sunset Boulevard, Lloyd has done it again. This is one for the history books. For Zegler, it’s a personal triumph. If it doesn’t lay the ghost of Snow White, nothing will.”
Neil Norman, Daily Express
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The i Paper
★★★★★
“Rachel Zegler’s thrilling Evita throbs with sex and muscle”
“I have never seen an Evita as exciting as this one from the Snow White star”
“The 2,000-strong, unanimous standing ovation at the end of Jamie Lloyd’s magisterial roughing-up of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s 1976 musical goes on for minute after minute – and rightly so.”
“… this production, which is surely Broadway-bound, constitutes a thrilling shot in the arm for the much-loved musical with its divinely tuneful score. Lloyd’s take will go down as the bump-and-grind Evita, throbbing with sex and muscle, as never before has the transactional nature of Eva’s rise from rural poverty to the heights of Argentine society been so clearly delineated.”
“Lloyd is not a director inclined to bother with the faff of scenery, meaning that our attention here is rewardingly re-angled towards the words and music.”
“Zegler never lets us forget how Eva was a master manipulator of both the masses and the mass media, as well as her husband… Diego Andres Rodriguez makes for a delightfully cynical Che”
“This show ranks among my top three favourite musicals – and I have never seen it presented more excitingly than this.”
Fiona Mountford, The i Paper
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What’s On Stage
★★★★★
“High-flying, adored and awe-inspiring”
“Cue insanity, crowds gathering outside the theatre for her performance, and an earnest debate about whether the audience is getting what they have paid for. The answer is quite simple: they are. Everyone is.”
“… Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice should be down on their knees thanking him for allowing their strongest, darkest show, first seen in 1978, to gleam with diamond-sharp brilliance.”
“Everything still feels essential and stark. But the difference here is that it is so much bigger and more dazzling – it fills the vast Palladium with the confidence of its storytelling”
“[Zegler] really is superb, with a clear, strong voice and astonishing amounts of energy as she powers her way through the show. That famous balcony scene is much more than a gimmick”
“Fabian Aliose’s outstanding choreography is all fierce lines and vigorous diagonals. Tango provides its pulse and its shapes.”
“Lloyd’s quality as a director is that he generates huge momentum, but he also understands stillness and subtlety. He lets the acting breathe.”
“… Diego Andres Rodriguez, making a remarkable West End debut as Che, commentating on the action with charisma and bite, turning a stock figure into a character, someone whose views are worth caring about. It’s a performance of heft but restraint”
“Ultimately, like it or loathe it (which some people will), this Evita is an event with a capital E, an assertion of the unique power of theatre to become both story and spectacle, to draw people in.”
Sarah Crompton, What’s On Stage
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Daily Mail
★★★★★
“So sassy and cool, Rachel Zegler is a knockout as Evita”
“Prepare to be blown away by Rachel Zegler. She is simply sensational in a stunning new production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s 1978 musical about Argentina’s legendary former first lady, Eva ‘Evita’ Peron, which opened officially in the West End last night.”
“… there’s nothing innocent about Jamie Lloyd’s raunchy production. He gleefully embraces the neo-fascist pageantry of Peronism, fleshing it out with vividly athletic choreography by Fabian Aloise. The result is a carnival of body-popping physical fireworks”
“Barely costumed bodies provide the scenery: rippling vistas of gyrating flesh. Even President Peron himself (James Olivas) is presented as a hunky sexbomb porn star towering over tiny Zegler, with watermelon biceps bulging out of his sleeveless shirt.”
“Go to be knocked out by Zegler alone. The live action Snow White debacle is all but forgotten. She’s back to her West Side Story – or Hunger Games – best.”
Patrick Marmion, Daily Mail
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TimeOut
★★★★
“Zegler is phenomenal, the balcony scene is incredible, Jamie Lloyd’s production is thrilling if occasionally incoherent”
“In terms of pure column inches, the balcony scene from Jamie Lloyd’s Evita is surely the biggest news to come out of the theatre world in years…. the scene – which is, to be clear, astonishingly good – can only really be contextually appreciated if you’ve seen the one before it, which very much takes place in the theatre.”
“It’s a pitch-perfect mix of theatrical audacity, political satire and deft cinematography. It strikes me as remarkable that anyone watching inside could possibly feel short changed”
“There are a lot of things to be excited about. The balcony stream stuns. Fabian Aloise’s choreography is phenomenal: playful, jerky and contorted, like sexy demonic possession. And my god, Zegler… Zegler’s performance is brilliant and unsentimental.”
“The populist Peróns were on the softer end of actual fascism, but it’s to the credit of Lloyd and Zegler how unsparing this production is with them. Her range is also genuinely jaw-dropping: she’s a showtunes gal and you expect the mannered beauty of ‘Don’t Cry for Me Argentina’, but it’s the leather-lunged rock stuff that’s the real revelation.”
“… you’re pretty much entirely at the mercy of Rice’s lyrics for context… which can be tough. They’re good song lyrics, but a bit hazy as a guide to the ins and outs of mid-twentieth century Argentinian politics.”
“Coherence isn’t this Evita’s strong suit. But there is so much that is good about it”
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The Guardian
★★★
“Rachel Zegler is phenomenal but Jamie Lloyd’s rock show drowns out the story”
“Zegler excels as Eva Perón and the crowds outside are used to capture the hypnotic appeal of populism but the narrative takes a backseat in his staging of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s musical”
“In one scene, she wanders off stage and on to an outward-facing balcony to sing a magnetic reprise of Don’t Cry for Me Argentina to the gathered crowd outside the theatre… It is no less than the director’s biggest coup de theatre: the public itself is enlisted for his mise en scene of populist rallies, crowd hypnotism and authoritarian charm.”
“Zegler, in her West End debut, is phenomenal. Stripped to undergarments, she is an indifferently exposed Perón, conniving, deliciously villainous, pocket-sized yet steely in the extreme”
“If a successful musical is simply about the singing, dancing and spectacle, this one soars. The choreography by Fabian Aloise, who has previously worked on three other Lloyd shows, is out-of-this-world imaginative.”
“There is an approximation to the characters as a whole, with very little focus on Perón’s interiority. Maybe that is not the point, but how then can the audience feel the tragedy of her untimely death – which takes up so much time in the second half of the musical – if they cannot connect with it emotionally?”
“If you feel denied of the subtleties of story, character and commentary on populist power, you will still have an eye-popping night out. And the balcony scene is a stroke of genius.”
Arifa Akbar, The Guardian
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The Times
★★★
“Rachel Zegler is a blank-eyed heroine in a leather bra”
“Jamie Lloyd’s Palladium staging now feels more redolent of high-octane stadium rock. Newcomers might not have a clue what’s going on”
“How ironic that the one moment when Rachel Zegler’s doomed heroine seemed close to being a three-dimensional figure was during the song that didn’t actually happen in front of us.”
“Zegler, who otherwise spends a lot of the evening in little more than a leather bra and shorts, is reduced to a blank-eyed marionette for virtually the whole show. Her voice is fine but it has to compete with the musical director Alan Williams’s wildly amplified orchestra. Too many songs whirl past in a semi-audible maelstrom.”
“I’d be genuinely surprised if newcomers to the show have a clue what is happening for much of the evening as this dressed-down, concert-style spectacle, enhanced by Fabian Aloise’s streetwise choreography — with a smidgen of twerking too — rattled through Eva Peron’s journey”
“… this venture, for all its raw physicality, suggests he’s beginning to slip into a formula. Those people waiting in the street to see Zegler on the balcony got the best bargain of all.”
Clive Davis, The Times
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Variety
“‘Evita’ Review: Rachel Zegler Brings Thrilling Vocals to Jamie Lloyd’s Flashy but Empty Revival”
“The crowd roars and the vast, unsmiling curtain-call cast line the stage with the leading man bare-chested and covered in blood. No, this isn’t director Jamie Lloyd’s “Sunset Boulevard” — it’s his “Evita”. And that’s not all that these two productions of Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals share. With weapons-grade lighting and sound, this pulsating West End production is almost “Evita – The Rock Concert.” But while it delivers in spades for the sensation-generation, something major is missing. That something is storytelling.”
“… no one will complain about not knowing where their ticket price cash has been spent. But dazzling though it is, there’s something faintly decadent about abandoning the depth of Rice and Lloyd Webber’s strongest achievement for a thrill-ride display.”
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Average Rating: 4.6 Stars based on 12 reviews
CriticScore: 92 based on 12 reviews
Evita
London Palladium, London
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📷 Main photo: Evita at the London Palladium. Rachel Zegler. Photo by Marc Brenner
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