Leeds First Direct Arena
Thursday, April 3 2025
It must be amazing to be Jeff Wayne.
A successful composer, multi instrumentalist and record producer, he then comes out with The War of The Worlds. A few months shy of his 82nd birthday he is still on stage, walking out to enthusiastic applause and cheers before conducting The ULLAdubULLA Strings and The Black Smoke Band. To know your composition is still loved, revered and enjoyed after nearly 50 years must make you wake up with a smile on your face everyday, but added to that is the personal acclaim as soon as he stood in the spotlight.
I have personally waited a year, four weeks and a day since buying the tickets – and more than 40 years since I first heard it to see it live. Of course, I didn’t know way back when my brother bought the album it would ever be on stage, but the level of excitement I felt about seeing it live for the first time made me feel like I had always been waiting. It had been part of our upbringing. It brings back Sunday afternoons when none of the three television channels had anything worth watching on (yes, I am that old), my mother cooking Sunday dinner, eating raw cake mix from the bowl, and the occasional nightmare of alien invasions. This was going to be an emotional night.
It wasn’t until a couple of days before the show that I checked the cast list, and I hadn’t spotted that Jeff Wayne was the conductor so it was a beautiful moment for me when I realised that there he was, smiling, taking his well deserved applause before it had even started.
Going back to the cast list, I knew we had Liam Neeson’s hologram playing The Journalist, and was delighted to see Anna-Marie Wayne and Nathan James still playing Carrie and The Voice of Humanity respectively. I watched the film of the stage show a few years ago and thought James had been outstanding, and I had also heard, for the first time in years, ulla. It sent a shiver through me.
WOTW is a play, musical, film, concert, light show, and possibly unique to Leeds, a shadow play on the white walls either side of the stage. Most poignant was Parson Nathaniel (Max George, The Wanted) and Beth’s (Maisie Smith, The Other Boleyn Girl, Eastenders – and my daughter would like to steal your gorgeous green dress) duet, their silhouettes at times distorted and sometime in stark relief, the cross passing back and forth between them
I love the invaders in the stage show, taken from the album artwork and nothing like the American reimaginings. The whole aesthetic is a forerunner to steampunk, and there is a certain octopus on dry land to the machines.
The stage is unusual in that the orchestra are front and – almost – central: not hidden away in an orchestra pit, with a minimal stage set and no scene changes as all the fancy parts are on screens where they interact with the play through spot on timing.
One surprise was the intensity of the invader’s fire – you could probably have toasted marshmallows on it if you were in the front row!
I also wasn’t expecting the trap doors, there was so much going on at times. I hadn’t even noticed the bridge in the second half until it was put into use and became the centre of attention. I can’t remember last time I saw a production that used relatively simple changes so effectively. I think the best use of the stage was Beth’s last scene, I won’t give the details in case you have yet to see it but there were gasps, including from me – it was very well done.
One thing I was not certain about was whether Charlie Simpson (Busted, Fightstar) would do justice to the heart-rending Forever Autumn, as he was The Sung Thoughts of The Journalist. I have loved that song since I first heard it, and love it still – and I needn’t have worried, he did the song justice. We then moved on to Thunder Child, another emotive song this time building up your hope then dashing it down, and James did a cracking rendition of it taking us into the interval. As the lights came up my daughter said “are you crying?” Yes, of course I was.
I won’t go into the plot because if you’re a fan, whether you’ve seen the stage show or not, you will know it already. If you’re not a fan and are considering going, don’t want to spoil it for you.
If I could sum up WOTW in word, it would be: mesmorising.
Was it worth the wait? Of course it was. Will I leave it as long next time? Definitely not!
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