Evita at the Palladium: Zegler shines in modern sexy adaptation of Lloyd Webber classic

Tom Grant, 01 August 2025

It’s hard to believe that Rachel Zegler has only been in the public eye for less than five years, but the 24-year-old superstar played the ailing political icon of 1950s Argentina with charm, sassiness, sexiness and absolute stardom. Elaine Paige and Patti LuPone watch out, there’s a brand new Eva Peron in town, and she’s rocking it out in a leather bra and hotpants.

We’ll never know how Diego Andres Rodriguez reacted to Jamie Lloyd casting him in another of his stage adaptations, but I bet he wasn’t expecting to somehow end up in his pants covered in fake blood again. After playing the role of Artie in Lloyd’s Broadway adaptation of Sunset Boulevard, the audience may struggle to understand who exactly Rodriguez is playing, as the fictionalised version of Che Guevara is never explained to us. Instead of his traditional Cuban army uniform, he appears in a tight black tee and black cargos, rather like he was trying to get into Berghain on a Saturday.

The one thing that is missing from this show is its Argentine history and culture. Apart from the flying of blue and white flags during ‘A New Argentina’, and every cast member deliberately pronouncing the country’s name in an over exaggerated Latin accent, the restricted costume choices, lack of staging and Fabian Aloise’s break dancing throughout remove the story from its time and place. Soutra Gilmour’s costumes and set seemed to represent the dictatorships of the Cold War with bland greys rather than the demise of one of the most influential political wives of the 20th century.

This can be confusing at times, as we see the ensemble as a cast of faceless descamisados and bourgeois, changing between greys and golds to represent their wealth. The minimalist staging greets you into an unknown abyss of Peron’s declining health, the only part of the timeline one can fully grasp. Zegler appearing at the beginning during ‘Requiem for Evita’ only confuses you more, as you’re not even sure if she’s dead. I did miss the usual change of scenery in the transition between ‘Eva Beware of the City’ and ‘What’s New Buenos Aires’ when Eva finally makes it to the capital - this time represented by some of the upper classes prancing around with fans like it was a pride parade, or the Georgian era.

Although pure and simple may be Jamie Lloyd’s (and Hear’Say’s) style, there is no shying away from the exceptional adaptation of the balcony scene. Zegler appears before the audience on a large LED screen, firstly walking through the bar that those in the grand circle have just been kicked out of five minutes before the end of the interval for security reasons. Then, her address to the people on the street from the actual balcony of the London Palladium recreates the moment Eva Peron spoke to those outside the Casa Rosada better than any adaptation has before. Lloyd’s political message seeps through, as Peron speaks to the descamisados on the streets of London, whilst the audience, the symbolic bourgeois, sit inside and watch her on their massive television screens. Zegler even manages to break the fourth wall, turning to the lens of the camera and asking those higher classes for approval, asking “have I said too much?”. Phenomenal.

Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice loved a synth guitar during the 1970s, and you can hear one in nearly every musical they’ve written together. It is mad that they managed to make the birth of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ into a rock musical, but that’s for another day. The rock elements of Evita are a staple of its ingenuity, but in many songs you simply couldn’t hear a thing that was going on. The orchestra were amazing, giving you the feeling of hearing the music for the first time all over again, but songs like ‘Waltz for Eva and Che’ made it seem like Zegler and Rodriguez were just trying to see who could shout the loudest, and although ‘A New Argentina’ gave me unbelievable goosebumps, I wouldn’t have wanted to be sat there if I had tinnitus. 

If modern and contemporary are your thing, this is certainly the musical for you. Jamie Lloyd’s adaptation has brought to the forefront the essence of Lloyd Webber’s rock musical ideology. A sung-through story that represents itself as a concert, as Eva and Che even fight over handheld microphones at points, akin to Nicole Scherzinger grasping a microphone out of Jahméne Douglas’ hand in the 2012 X Factor final. However, if you’re a historian, or want to know anything about the life of Eva Peron in a factual and understandable format, this may not be for you. Rachel Zegler is absolutely faultless in her representation of Eva, but there’s just something I can’t shake from the performance, and that’s the confusion so many of the audience felt as they left. Not many people really knew what she’d done in her life, and I certainly don’t think she was doing tours of Europe in jazzy hotpants.

★★★★☆ London Palladium until September 6