Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds: The New Generation [DVD]

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Thompson and new cast members Alexis James and Tara Blaise do a great job on their vocals and "acting". The Journalist, however, realizing the Artilleryman's ambitions far exceed his abilities, soon leaves.

Since the album was released, Wayne has tried to be more faithful to his original version by toning down the synthesizer elements and re-arranging the string orchestra when he performed the album live in 2014 and 2018, but keeping his new compositions and Liam Neeson's narration entirely unchanged. Following its release in November 1978, Wayne had to re-do the album because Quinn's script was in Mexican Spanish and not Peninsular Spanish. As a “standard edition DVD” there’s only minimal special features in the form of interviews with the major cast players; a couple of which have been available online for a while as it is.

Bassist Herbie Flowers and Guitarist Chris Spedding, both part of the original 1978 album and later the original 2006 live tour, again tour as members of The Black Smoke Band for Alive on Stage The rest of band remain relatively unchanged from the album and previous tours, with the exception of Gordy Marshall from the album is replaced by Accy Yeats on drums. It was supported by an arena tour, followed by a stage show adaptation, running at the Dominion Theatre in London's West End from February to April 2016. The press release compared the planned 2021 tour to its original 2006 counterpart: "In 2006, TWOTW was already considered a cutting edge production with six trucks filled to the brim. A short animated prequel to the story was also presented in the style of the upcoming feature film detailing the Martians' ecological destruction of their own world (originally made for the 1998 computer game) and their preparations to invade Earth. However, Wayne went on to read Wells's book "three or four times" and saw the 1953 film adaption, and decided it was the most suitable for a musical adaptation.

We use cookies to give you the best possible experience on our site, provide personalised content and advertising, analyse our traffic, and ensure you see more of what you love. From the start Wayne saw his adaptation as an opera, with "story, leitmotifs, musical phrases, sounds and compositions that relate to the whole. In a prologue, the Journalist notes that in the late 19th century few people had even considered the possible existence of extraterrestrial life, yet planet Earth had in fact long been enviously observed by advanced beings.

The tour featured former Strictly Come Dancing dancer Kevin Clifton as the Artilleryman and Steps' Claire Richards as Beth. The newly arrived Martians construct a handling machine: a squat, spider-like vehicle used to capture and collect humans. Wayne thought Hayward was the right singer for "Forever Autumn" and sent him a demo with the invitation to participate, but Hayward was unconvinced. ft of space, the 2-hour production combined music from the album, immersive theatre and virtual reality, holograms, and other techniques. Due to the indisposition of Daniel Bedingfield during the run, the Artilleryman was played by understudy and West End performer Simon Shorten for a number of shows; later Shorten took over as the Artilleryman for the remaining month of the run.Wayne is credited as the album's sole producer, with Geoff Young as recording engineer with Laurence Diana assisting.

At the time, Jeff Wayne also announced that another guest had been confirmed but was yet to be announced. Launched in June 2009 to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the original album release and included dates across Europe. I was introduced to Jeff Wayne’s epic musical adaptation of classic sci-fi story The War of the Worlds back in 2010, and discovered it was touring live that year. Though towards the transition of a couple of songs, there is an epilepsy inducing audio 'Stutter' that has been a 'Thing in pop music' for teh last 10 years or so. Following the success of the 2005 re-release of the original album, ULLAdubULLA II was released on 17 April 2006.In 2000, a collection of remixes of tracks from the original album—including several used in the 1998 computer game—were released on a double CD titled The War of the Worlds: ULLAdubULLA—the Remix Album.