Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of TWotW: Alive on Stage (2006)
Dir. David Mallet | Filmed at Wembley Arena, 25th April, 2006.
It begins with a v/o by the Martians, all of whom are fluent in the English language. It'll be helpful to anyone not already familiar with the album or original story, but it's not something that I enjoyed, personally. For me, the true beginning is when the Richard Burton narration comes in:
"No one would have believed, in the last years of the 19th Century, that human affairs were being watched from the timeless worlds of space..."
Speaking of Burton, the production features a weird, disembodied projection of the actor's head, floating high above the 'stage right' side.
The lower half of his face moves in time with the spoken words, but the rest of his face is like some kind of death mask. Who the f**K thought that was a good idea? It's ridiculous. I'd the good fortune to see the same production live in 2010 (at a different venue to what's featured on the DVD) and it looked just as stupid then.
As well as the floating Burton head, there's a 10-piece band (The Black Smoke Band) and a 48-piece orchestra (ULLAdubULLA Strings). Behind all of those is a huge cinema screen onto which is projected footage that complements the story being told. Its a mix of filmed live actors and ropey CGI. It's something to look at, I suppose, but it's not Pink Floyd level of interesting.
On the plus side, both the musicians and the performers playing the characters that feature in the story are all excellent. The original performers sound just as good as they do on the studio version, while the new cast members are as strong as those they replace about 90% of the time. I even preferred the concert's version of the Artilleryman to David Essex's album version.
Oh, and there's a 30 foot Martian tripod towering above everything, which is pretty cool.
In closing, however, I didn't see much reason to ever reach for the DVD again, over the Studio album. The animated prologue wasn't entirely necessary, the CGI was bad, the flashy lights were borderline annoying, and the performances weren't radically different. But please don't let my personal preference detract from the performances of the cast; they really are all wonderful.
The Cast are as Follows:
The Journalist / Narrator: Richard Burton (voice)
The Sung Thoughts of the Journalist: Justin Hayward
The Voice of Humanity: Chris Thompson
The Artilleryman: Alexis James
The Parson (Nathaniel): Russell Watson
The Parson's wife (Beth): Tara Blaise
NOTE: I know it says LIVE on Stage! in the pic and I've titled the post ALIVE on Stage! The DVD version that I own is definitely the latter, but I can't find a decent sized pic of its cover art.
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