A new musical is always exciting. With Eddie Perfect having written the music and lyrics for the 2019 Broadway adaptation of Beetlejuice, the Australian premiere was highly anticipated, particularly since Perfect himself agreed to step into the title role – and what a phantasmagorical performance he gives!

So, (three) hats off to Perfect and the rest of the creative team for the hilarious horror and demented joy that is Beetlejuice the Musical.

Eddie Perfect, Rob Johnson, Elise McCann and cast members of Beetlejuice the Musical. Photo © Michelle Grace Hunter

Based on the classical 1988 Tim Burton film, the musical features an amusing book by Scott Brown and Anthony King, which meshes flawlessly with Perfect’s songs. The lyrics are witty, outrageous and laugh-out-loud funny at times, while the score, which draws on a dizzy range of musical styles – sometimes within one song for the deranged Beetlejuice himself – is wonderfully catchy, with numbers perfectly crafted for each character.

As for Harry Belafonte’s calypso number Day-O (The Banana Boat Song), which is used in the film, it’s even funnier here.

As Beetlejuice tells us in a manically funny song at...