With vampire musicals, it is customary to say that they are “bloodless” or that they “lack bite.” With Lestat, however, the latest Broadway entrant in the crimson-kiss sweepstakes, to reach for a thematic put-down would be too easy. To this $12m adaptation of the first two volumes of Anne Rice’s popular Vampire Chronicles, the book writer Linda Woolverton, the composer Elton John, and the lyricist Bernie Taupin have each contributed honourably.

But the mark of too many creative hands is evident. The director, Robert Jess Roth, and the uncredited consultant, Jonathan Butterell, have laboured mightily to streamline this complex story: the 18th-century Frenchman Lestat tries to find peace for his boyhood friend Nicolas by searching for a possible panacea from the ancient vampire Marius.

A narrative shape is now discernible, and the second act is worlds improved since California. The look of the show – crosses, rock-arena projections, a stage that occasionally erupts into flame – is impressive. Occasionally, the dramatically over-intense evening threatens to compel attention. “Right Before My Eyes,” for example, which Lestat sings to a sleeping Nicolas, has the beauty of a classic John-Taupin ballad, right down to the opening piano figure. But mood, music, and characterisation more often blur.

If Lestat is regrettably inconsistent as a standard entertainment, it retains a certain pop-cultural resonance. In the 1980s, when the second and third books of Rice’s trilogy were published, its motifs (the taint of blood, the search for a cure) seemed eerily relevant to the AIDS crisis, and the homoeroticism was especially brave. Today, the 18-35 demographic may not care about the show’s lack of a conventional love story. Young adults may love the long-tressed Lestat, sung with conviction by Hugh Panaro, precisely because of his post-Bowie pansexuality – the vampire’s hunger for a fix goes beyond gender, race, or class. But the vampire-musical genre still awaits something truly transcendent. ★★★☆☆ Tel +1 212 307 4100