Jeff Wayne’s The War of the Worlds review: How paradoxical that Victorian England’s destruction should be relayed by an Irishman

Jeff Wayne’s The War of the Worlds

3Arena, Dublin

★★★★☆

No one would have believed in the last years of the 1970s that Jeff Wayne’s prog-rock retelling of HG Wells’s The War of the Worlds would itself become a phenomenon – almost as beloved as the original novel. Wells’s book was a masterclass in taut storytelling, with the hideous Martians largely kept off the page as they steam-rolled over Victorian England and reduced the British Empire to smoke, ashes and red alien knotgrass.

But Wayne’s 1978 tilt at the tale was the very opposite. Here was a gloriously maximalist sci-fi splurge, with singing vicars, an artilleryman channelling David Bowie and guitars that sounded like death rays blitzing the soldiers who had set up their field guns on Horsell Common.

Forty-seven years later, Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of The War of the Worlds (its official title) has returned to Dublin’s 3Arena as part of its Spirit of Man tour – named after the power ballad belted out in the second act shortly after the Martians stomp triumphantly all over the planet.

A fantastic production is elevated by an impressive cast. Charlie Simpson of Busted delivers the singing parts of Wells’s narrator journalist, while Max George of The Wanted is great as the ever-more-deranged Parson Nathaniel (a role originated by Phil Lynott on the 1978 record). But the true scene-stealer is Rou Reynolds, of the latter-day punk-proggers Enter Shikari, as the Artillery Man, whose unhinged power ballad, Brave New World, is essentially David Bowie’s Diamond Dogs LP shrunk down to 12 minutes.

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The action is narrated by Liam Neeson’s unnamed journalist, inheriting the part from Richard Burton. He appears as a hologram, and the hint of a home-grown accent adds another layer to the story. How paradoxical that the destruction of Victorian England by Martians should be relayed by an Irishman.

Yet if Neeson is here only in spirit (and pixels), then Wayne is very much in the house: the 81-year-old conducts both an orchestra and a rock band. He is joined by his daughter Anna-Marie, playing Carrie, the journalist’s fiancee. There is also a huge Martian “tripod” landing craft, which descends from the ceiling and glowers like a demonic lava lamp.

Wells’s 1898 novel is a tart critique of colonialism that asks the English reader how they would feel if heavily armed invaders were to turn up on their doorstep uninvited. Reading it as a child, I distinctly remember cheering the invaders. Yet Wayne’s musical has itself become a time capsule, sweeping the onlooker back to the heyday of disco, glam and Pink Floyd. (The influence of Dave Gilmour’s cascading guitar style on the score is discernible.)

It’s great fun: it’s a depiction of an extraterrestrial apocalypse blending glam-rock histrionics and a huge slice of camp. Quite what Wells would think of his masterpiece redone as an over-the-top rock opera is anyone’s guess. But audiences continue to love it.

As readers of the book will know, the tale finishes with the Martians catching the common cold and dying. But Wayne’s The War of the Worlds chugs ever onwards, a prog-pop delight that gleefully filters the story of humanity’s downfall through a prism of 1970s kitsch.