Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of The War of the Worlds

First up, some disclosures: I am a lifelong science fiction fan. HG Wells' War of the Worlds is in my top five sci-fi novels, read so many times that I can watch this show and say, aha, now we're starting chapter 12. And the original double LP of Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of The War of the Worlds was a cherished and much-played part of my teenage record collection.

So there's not much point in pretending any degree of objectivity in this review. I loved every minute of this show - all the spectacle, the music, the wondrousness of hearing Liam Neeson narrate huge chunks of Wells' elegant prose while Martian war machines crashed across the landscape, decimating 19th century London.

War of the Worlds is one of the earliest and best-known science fiction stories but none of its most famous adaptations - the Orson Welles Mercury Theatre broadcast of 1938, the George Pal movie of the 1950s, and the recent Spielberg blockbuster starring Tom Cruise - is faithful to the original's setting and plot. Only this version - the Jeff Wayne musical one - tells Wells' story using Wells' characters.

Following the success of his original LP, Wayne has staged several versions of his War of the Worlds, garnering media attention from the clever ploy of "recreating" the late Richard Burton in holographic form to act as on stage narrator (the role he played in the original recording). But this is the "New Generation", which means instead we have holographic Liam Neeson interacting with live on stage actors including Kerry Ellis, Ricky Wilson and Jason Donovan. Jeff Wayne is centre stage conducting 45 musicians while a big screen behind them shows film of the Martian invasion with which the actors interact. All this is performed live in a huge stadium and it's been captured on film for those of us who couldn't make the gig.

It's not going to appeal to everyone. You could criticise the music, which is prog-rock and relies heavily on repetition of a few catchy jingle-like motifs, rather than fully developed songs, strung together with what Jerry Goldsmith once called "the saving grace of the ostinato". You might find the show's disparate elements - light show, filmed images, live actors, orchestra, props - fighting for your attention rather than complementing each other. You might even find Jeff Wayne's constant onscreen presence a little too much egoboo  (that's a sci-fi term, but I’m sure you get it). But as I said, I loved it. I once had the honour of sitting in a cinema alongside my much-missed mate, "Mr Science Fiction" Forry Ackerman (google will tell you who he was). I only wish it was this movie we had been watching, because I'm sure he would have ADORED it.

Alex Paige

Images: Roy Smiljanic / Jeff Wayne Productions

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