Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10
It is one of the most profoundly moving and stirring pieces of music ever captured for posterity, taken from a story by H.G. Wells which has captured the imagination since it was first published and in which Jeff Wayne has for over 35 years brought to life in its deserved glory. However music aside, the death knell for The War of the Worlds has been sounded across the void of space.
As the Liverpool Echo Arena shook to the foundations with the reverberation of deathly heat rays, invaders from Mars landing in Horsell Common and London being attacked by the eerie red weed and maniacal sounding machines in which the parasitic head lice like hybrid took on the world, it would have been at the back of all inside the arena that this was the very last time they would see it performed live. The resonating hum of humanity’s destruction would never be played out with the inspiring joy that Jeff Wayne brings to the occasion as writer, director, composer and arranger.
Jeff Wayne will be forever congratulated for bring this seminal piece of work to the attention of the music world, for making it the gargantuan beast that it is. A beast, a powerhouse of a production and timing that needs careful handling lest it run away with itself.
The music is still there, it fills every fibre of being, it captures the very real fears of the unknown and progress that some tremble at. Whilst that is the point of War Of The Worlds, it has changed in its stage direction, it has become the beast that at times gives just too much and has lost something of itself along the way.
The use of a holographic Liam Neeson for example is an excellent choice as the pivotal character of George Herbert the Journalist whose thoughts resonate across the Echo Arena but it has to be said that no matter how good Liam Neeson is an actor and to that effect he is one of the finest and prolific to have come out of Ireland in the last 100 years but he is no Richard Burton. This was just one of the changes made in which to frame the music for a new generation of fans that have rightly come along. When a piece of music is as good as The War of the Worlds is, it will always pick up new followers. Yet something is lost in the transition, something tangible becomes unravelled and desecrated and whilst Jason Donovan excelled as the unhinged Parson Nathaniel and Shayne Ward was surprisingly effective as the Artillery Man, the real lynch pin of the narrator/journalist was lost.
The War of the Worlds will never be surely be seen as dull affair, there is just too much life and love in it, from original record to stage extravaganza, to ever be deemed an irrelevance, especially with a song as beautiful as Forever Autumn held deep within its heart or as passionate as Thunder Child, chilling as Dead London or as epic as Brave New World can be within it ranks, but there is a little piece of the show that has now been pecked alive and the remains left to fester in the dying days of The War of the Worlds as a stage show.
As wonderful as it wants to be and as much even the most dedicated of fans wish it be, some extravaganzas are best left to the mists of time…to paraphrase a particular lyric sung with great depth of feeling by David Essex on the original recording… “Maybe from the wreckage, something beautiful will grow.” Great art should never be tampered with too much; after all you wouldn’t go up with a pencil and draw a seagull on a Turner masterpiece!
Ian D. Hall