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Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of The War of The Worlds – live

I was fortunate to see Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds on its first live tour in Birmingham last night.

The musical masterpiece, the closest adaptation so far of the original HG Wells novel has, amazingly, never been performed live in its entirity before this tour. I’ve always been a fan of the original recording, featuring the voices of David Essex, Justin Hayward (ex Moody Blues), Phil Lynott (Thin Lizzy) and Richard Burton as the journalist/narrator. The music, a combination of classical and synthesised sounds, still sounds as fresh today as it ever has.

So how does it come across as a live performance?

It is difficult to pre-empt what to expect for a show like this. Is it a classical concert? a rock concert? or a combination of the two?

I think the best way to describe it is to say that it is a multimedia experience. The Orchestra, band and Wayne (conducting) are on stage, as are the singers who perform the vocal numbers. Large video screens form the background, adding visuals to the show, including 3D graphics along with the original artwork from the album and video footage.

Also, suspended above the stage is a head, onto which the computer-generated image of Richard Burton is projected. Wayne comments in the programme that while an actor could have been used to replace Burton’s part in the performance, the late welshman’s booming voice is so synonymous with The War of The Worlds, no actor could live up to the expectations.

Completing the stage is a Martian Fighting Machine, complete with ‘heat ray’ and eye camera.

Justin Hayward reprises his role as ’sung thoughts of the journalist’, and is joined by Russell Watson as Parson Nathaniel, Alexis James as the Artilleryman,Chris Thompson as ‘The Voice of Humanity’ and Irish singer Tara Blaise as Beth, the Parson’s wife.

The overall effect is fantastic, with the live performances complimenting the CGI and music, and making the show more engrossing than it would have been with simply an orchestra and performers, or an orchestra and the video screens.

However, Justin Hayward, once an idol to many teens, is now an old man. His voice certainally isn’t up to the standard it was when recording the original album, and he struggles in certain places. His performance was lacklustre too, simply walking around the stage. Wheras the other performers were acting as well as singing (James’ naive artilleryman and Watson’s doubt-ridden, and slightly mad priest being the standout performances), Hayward’s wandering around the stage gave the impression that he didn’t want to be there. Granted, as the journalist’s inner thoughts, perhaps he shouldn’t be running around the stage, but if he injected a litte amount of emotion into ‘Forever Autumn’, then we might be convinced that the journalist belived that he’d lost his fiancee. In the programme, Wanye comments that the original tests of the ‘Richard Burton’ head were unsuccessful as he appeared too old to play the mid-twenties/early thirties journalist of Wells’ novel. Perhaps in this case, a younger actor could have been used to replace Hayward.

The other little niggle was the unnecessary prologue. Those who have played the computer game based on the album will recognise this as the ‘martian prologue’, where the martians justify their invasion of Earth. However, having them explain their plan (in english!) is a bit superflous, and makes the show lose a little of the impact of Burton’s opening words: “No-one would have believed…”

The computer imagery on the head was passable, if a little expressionless. Aside from the odd eyebrow raise, and blink, the mouth was the only part that moved.

That aside, the rest of the show was incredible. The music remained pretty much unchanged from the album, a few minor flourishes aside, but played LOUD, the way it should be. The Sound Engineers took their time in building the volume up (perhaps to allow our ears to adjust), so The Eve of the War was perhaps a little tamer than I was expecting, but by the time The Artilleryman and the Fighting Machine came on, the orchestra was thundering, combined with the CGI of the Martian Fighting machines destroying everything in their path gave real power to the attack.

‘Forever Autumn’, as I have already said was a little disappointing, but Thunder Child was rousing. Part of the problem with a show like this, is that it is neither a concert, nor theatre, and I don’t think the crowd knew whether to join in our not.

The Second half opened with a CGI animation of the Red Weed taking root on earth, growing and twisting, before zooming into a church, and Parson Nathaniel. The Duet “Sprit of Man” was, again an audio-visual treat, with Beth’s verses accompanied with positive, beautiful imagery, and Nathaniel’s with images of death and destruction.

Watson and Blaise’s voices complemented each other well, with Watson also indulging in a little overacting, at one point, posing in the iconic stance of Nathaniel trying to ward off the martians with his cross from the album. Having said that, hammy acting is better than none at all, and Watson at least creates a character you can believe is losing his faith and going slightly mad.

Alexis James shines as The Artilleryman. Perhaps as the only stage actor in the performance, he knows how to engange an audience. His performance as young, naive Artilleryman is spot on, and you are amused by his plans of building a ‘brave new world’, yet feel a twinge of sadness for him, especially when the journolist abandons him.

Because of the type of show it is, there was no prospect of an encore, although, typically, people were leaving before the concert finished, with the modern day epilogue including images taken recently by the mars rover robots.

The problem with this type of event (and with the british!) is how to behave. People began applauding the arrival of the orchestra (as you would in a concert hall) but then stopped (as you would if it was the backing band for a popular singer). In a smaller venue, people would join in with the singing (particularly with the ‘come on thunder child’ lines), but that would be rude at a concert.

Although this was a short tour, I believe that having tried the formula, and seeing that it works, Wayne will be considering taking the show on a larger tour, perhaps in 2008, marking the 30th anniversary of a piece of music that sounds as good as it ever did.

One of my favourite comedians of all time is Jasper Carrott, so when he was bringing an updated version of his “christmas cracker” to the N.E.C., I had to go along.

Rock With Laughter is a variety show of music, dance and comedy, compered by Carrott himself.

Carrott opened with his usual “Oggie Oggie Oggie” shouts and the punchline of “Isn’t it easy to entertain the Welsh!” before introducing the first act: Reelin’ and a Rockin’.

Reelin’ and a Rockin’ consists of five singers from the 50’s and 60’s performing a selection of rock and roll hits. Unfortunately, while they would seem like the perfect opening act, the reception was rather muted.

Carrott then introduced an unbilled addition – Bobby Davro. For me, he was the big surprise of the night. He was genuinely funny with some very original material. Bobby Davro for me conjours up images of 90’s game shows and cable TV, but if he was to do a stand-up tour off the back of this, he would definately be worth a look.

Next was the second musical act, Bev Bevan’s Move. I must confess that I’ve never heard of them, although I did know the song ‘Blackberry Way’. For a group on the nostalgia trail, they were very good and probably the highlight of the musical acts.

Bill Bailey was up next. I have always found him funny and he didn’t disappoint, combining comedy and music to great effect and culminating with the “Scale of Shame” audio-visual performance, with distorted images of dictators and poloticians accompanying quotes to hilarious results.

The Bootleg Beatles closed off the first half, although they looked more like the Beatles than they sounded like them. (In addition ‘Paul’ was playing right-handed – a big oversight!)

The second half was opened by Bonnie Tyler. Oh dear… Don’t get me wrong, I like Bonnie Tyler’s music, but she should really retire gracefully now. Opening with “Holding Out For a Hero” was a mistake. She couldn’t hit the notes and spent most of the performance apparently singing to the guitarist. The backing band were too loud for her, but whether this was to cover up her inadequecies as a singer is up for debate.

Tyler spend most of her performance in the middle of the stage and hardly interacted with the audience. She did improve however, and “Total Eclipse of the Heart” was passable, Tyler opting to sing the higher bits lower so she didn’t strain too much.

Perhaps she was suffering from a cold, in between songs she did sound very croaky, but with a singer like Bonnie Tyler, who speaks with a frog in her throat anyway, it is difficult to tell. A real disappointment.

The mood was lifted very quickly though, as Carrott introduced “The Oldest Blues singer in the World”… as the large man swaggered onto the stage, there was no doubt it was Lenny Henry.

A storming set, featuring two characterisations, the blues singer formerly mentioned, and “Lister” the shopkeeper from his recent TV series, interspersed with traditional stand up, as Lenny recounted his days as a boy growing up in Dudley. Definately the highlight of the show.

Finally, the last musical act… Last year’s “X-Factor” runners up (and incidentally the only ones with a record deal now) G4.

First things first, I don’t like G4, I never have, and so I am probably biased against them. However, as they opened with Nessun Dorma, it became quiet clear that G4 are really one bloke and 3 backing singers. The main singer’s voice, however, is far too harsh to sing Opera. I can listen to Opera, and appreciate the amount of skill an opera singer has over their voice, but one of those skills is the ability to sing softly. This guy can’t do that.

It was also apparent that G4’s appearance was mainly due to their upcoming push on the Christmas Singles chart, and they sang ‘their’ Christmas song… a cover of one of my favourite Christmas songs: “When a Child is Born”. Why do these boy bands have to ruin perfectly good original songs – why can’t they write their own christmas song?

Overall though, an enjoyable night of comedy… it’s just a shame the ‘Rock’ part disappointed.