War of the Worlds at the Kings Theatre, Southsea

YOU really can’t fault CCADS for their ambition as well as their courage.

For an amateur dramatic society to attempt to depict mankind’s battle for survival against Martian invasion on a stage may seem to be crazy.

But it kind of works.

This unique show was the world’s first authorised dramatic production of what we must contractually call ‘Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of The War of the Worlds’ (Under Licence).

Theatrically it called for a lot of dance, mummery and walking around the stage wearing various expressions of terror. The cast cleverly spread their performances into the auditorium as they mingled with the audience.

Musically it could not have been better.

The Portsmouth-based drama company teamed up with young musicians from Chichester College under the leadership of Daf Hughes to perfectly recreate the score of Wayne’s hit 1978 rock album.

They did an excellent job, providing tension and excitement for the audience where the visuals flagged.

Narrator/Journalist Kevin Redfern started well with the famous words once spoken by Richard Burton, but, inexplicably, further narration was taped as Mr Redfern sat vacantly outside the action.

I only know that Pete Westmorland played the journalist’s younger self because I read it in the programme, but both sang well, particularly on Forever Autumn.

Standout performances also emerged from Matt Sackman as Parson Nathaniel and John-Paul McCrohon as a delusional artillery man.

The show was technically accomplished with impressive lighting effects, projections and pyrotechnics.

We even got to see a massive Martian tripod with glowing green eyes.

An impressive landmark for CCADS’ 20th anniversary, but maybe the next show they perform will be a bit more down to earth.

Musical Version Of THE WAR OF THE WORLDS

As a concept Jeff Wayne’s rousing album interpreting HG Wells novel War of The Worlds becoming a stage musical is perhaps as hard to grasp as the alien takeover it portrays.  It takes a clever director to draw the elements together and compose something that is fluid and entertaining.  That is exactly what the skilful and innovative John-Paul McCrohon achieved.

The principals all deserve a mention for their powerful performances.  Sean Ridley (Bermuda Control) stood out with his command of the stage, Pete Westmorland (Young Journalist) was very convincing and John-Paul McCrohon (Artillery Man) gave a moving performance with his emotional vision.  The choreography was excellent but there were a few company scenes where it could have been tighter.

The atmosphere was greatly enhanced by the superb lighting design (Ray Stead and Ian Pratt) and the set worked brilliantly.  Love it or hate it I think it would be impossible not to appreciate it.

A birthday treat!

For my birthday, my parents bought me two tickets to see a theatrical production of Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of the War of the Worlds (under licence- apparently the only production that has been allowed the staged licence) produced by CCADS and performed at our local theatre, the King's Theatre in Southsea. I've never been a huge theatre goer before (having only attended a few House of Burlesque shows hosted by Joe Black at the King's) but I think I need to go to the theatre more.

I took my favourite uncle to see it with me (he knew several people working on the project and even works with the man charged with making the Fighting Machine). I'm going to ramble on from here on out about the whle experience, so if anyone is at any point intending to see this production you might want to skip this out from here on in case it is spoiled.

Anyways...:3 when we were going to our seats, we noticed a LOT of people in Victorian dress, and at first we weren't sure if they were actors or not, as they seemed to be chatting with people, but after we sat down, we realised there were several people dotted around the theatre, on balconies and in aisles, dressed in black, standing still and staring down at the crowds, slowly turning their heads this way and that. One young man in a jacket with pale hair stood near us on the dress circle and he was SCARY! Just before the lights dimmed, he slowly turned away from the balcony and then robotically moved past us and out of the door. I swear it was like something out of Invasion of the Bodysnatchers and it was very unnerving.

This was an amateur production, on a small stage with limited resources, but it was brilliantly executed. People in costumes represented both established characters and normal folk, and here and there would be joined by the actors in black. When recounting the landing of the Cylinder on Horsell common, the pale-haired man who had freaked me out stood on a platform to represent it. I had feared for a moment that they were going to open the trap door and produce some tacky alien puppet prop, but instead, without any costuming or props, he stood silently on the platform, glaring down balefully at the gathering victorians. He only moved to push his hands forward- a flash of red light and a man fell back, having been "burned" by the intense heat of the "cylinder". 

The other black-clad actors also represented cylinders, aliens or fighting machines, but also joined the crowd to represent extra civilians or even other things- the red weed, water in the stream, or even falling timber and rubble. It should sound absolutely tacky, shouldn't it? But it wasn't! The singing was very good, as was the spoken narration (I had chills listening to that infamous opening..."and slowly...and surely...they drew their plans against us"). It was a very moving perfomance. There was very good use of lighting, screen projections and mist affects but for the most part it was all the actors, particularly those in black, who did their best to portray the sheer chaos of the events. 

The music was directly taken from Jeff Wayne's concept album, performed by an 11-peice band and it was fantastic! From my position I couldn't even see the musicians and actually thought it was all a recording at first, so pitch-perfect was it all. Imagine that, 11 people managed to completely recreate that entire album! Excellent! 

The people in black were so affective as well. They would just loom on the platforms, representing Fighting Machines looming on the horizon and despite their blatantly human form, you knew they were evil Fighting Machines. 

The most moving part for me was the Thunderchild. Deftly, 2 large triangular prop pieces were dragged swiftly onto the stage to represent the front of the doomed iron clad. The VIP boxes filled with actors screaming and cheering support for the Thunderchild, and you wanted to cheer as well. When the Thunderchild was finished, the actors carefully pushed it off stage in such a way that it looked like it was breaking into peices and falling beneath the waves. It was only then, right before the Interval, did the massive Fight Machine appear on stage. 

It was an impressive prop with glowing eyes- the details on the legs in particular were very good. It was not generall overused, more often than not the actors would represent it, and it only appeared on stage 3 times. 

During the interval, actors playing Oglivy and the Captain of the Thunderchild appeared on the dress circle crying out for men in the audience to bandy together and fight the machines, calling out "Men of Portsmouth, are you men or mice!" (My uncle, ever the comedian called out "Mice! Squeak squeak!" which was quite funny XD). And then the black-clad actors were back doing their Invasion-of-the-Bodysnatchers routine again. One guy stood directly over a member of the audience glaring down at him; completely straight face, not a flicker of emotion. The scary guy ended up right next to us again- boy he was scary.

The second half was not quite as thrilling as the first, but thats just because of how the story is...none of the music was cut out, so for the actors, there was a lot of "filling in" to be done, but they did very well. Another particularly touching part was at the end of the Artilleryman's song (Brave New World I think), when the narrator leaves him, his wine and his playing cards because he knows the martians are coming. Dotted around the edge of the stage were the actors in black, distant but turned towards them, with the scary-guy looming behind. The narrator leaves, and slowly, the rest of them began to close in on the Artilleryman, giving the impression that he was trapped...very moving scene!

My uncle and I loved it, it was a fantastic production...minimalist to some extent, but the machine was used well, as were the lights and things. I would so see this again. GREAT BIRTHDAY GIFT! 

SOURCE: http://www.goth.net/forums/viewtopic.php?p=337218&sid=821b5e132dd4b19f950f55cc1188c56e#p337218