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http://www.thewaroftheworlds.com/
Went to see this last week, and was well entertained. Always wanted to see the live version, having being a fan since the concept album's release in the late 70s, but for various reasons never got to either of the arena tours. A friend and fellow fan did say however that he felt the show was dwarfed somewhat by the large venue, with a little atmosphere lacking. So when I discovered Jeff was putting a theater version on in London's West End, I knew I had to go, and I made it in it's last week. It finished yesterday.
Had an absolute blast. Michael Praed made a very good stand-in for Justin Hayward and this time David Essex was the one from the original album, although playing a different role and singing Thunderchild instead of Brave New World. The latter was given to Daniel Bedingfield, though on our evening was replaced.
Rounding out the cast was Jimmy Nail as Parson Nethaniel, with Sugarbabes' blonde Heidi Range playing his wife, and surprisingly chose to sing in a more operatic style than she usually does in the cart hits.
What really made it of course was seeing Jeff Wayne on stage conducting both the string orchestra and the rock band. After Liam Neeson's initial words and the first phrase from the strings being absolutely spot-on, giving me goosebumps, I was ready for anything. The giant tripod machine was a little shaky, but looked great, and the music and performances were stunning.
Sadly, my wife didn't share my enthusiasm, saying it wasn't adapted very well. She couldn't understand why the narrator was played by two different people!
Anyone else make it to this show?
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Mike, if I didn't know better I'd think you were actually my wife with a pseudonym because your opinion is virtually word for word the same as hers! I have to admit it's true. I suppose I love the music so much I'm happy to overlook the shortcomings. I'm happy just to see and hear it all live, especially the first half of the thing (which is how I feel about the album actually). Essex sounded ok to me. Praed was especially good, though there were indeed times when he looked surplus to requirements.
It's also a fact that the ticket prices are down. I went last Tuesday and yes, the theater was only half full, and we only paid £26 each for good circle seats. Would have been £13 but I couldn't take the chance on whether my wife would see over the reported safety rail giving those seats "restricted view"status.
For me it was all a bargain for a great show that I wish I'd seen earlier as I might have gone again. With very low fares on the Megabus, and such cheap theater tickets I'd have done it.
But yeah, now they've had a run in a theater I think it's time to rethink it for any future shows. They need to work out a better way of creating a full show. I did think the ballet dancers were a poor way of filling the stage, and valiant attempt though it was the war machine was quite shaky, obviously hanging from above. And forgive me if I've mentioned it already, but we got no martian popping out of the cylinder. Looking at photos from earlier in the run there was one, so ours must have had some fault.
Hopefully the reported BBC-US co-produced mini-series will happen and we'll finally have a Victorian England set version on tv.
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