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War Of The Worlds review
Dec. 23rd, 2007 09:44 amLast night was an evening of unexpected pleasures mixed with inevitable annoyances.
Dave booked tickets for the stage show of Jeff Wayne's War Of The Worlds months ago, and finally it was time to go see it last night. We hadn't managed to get our tickets delivered to us, but we left in more than enough time to collect them at the box office. I hadn't been to the Dome in years and it turned out to be quite a spectacular venue, though the number of people crammed into the "streets" round the outside made it impossible to find anywhere we could eat a proper meal before the show. The show itself was incredibly cool and not in the least what I'd been expecting, but was occasionally so loud as to be impossible to hear clearly. Then, the boat ride up the Thames afterwards was great fun, but bloody freezing and accidentally getting off at the wrong stop meant we didn't get home until 1am.
Overally, though, it was an excellent night, helped emormously by the fact that I didn't have to get up this morning (I was briefly tempted to go riding after all, but decided to go back to sleep instead). There was a full string section and a modern band up on stage, being conducted by Jeff Wayne himself, who was clearly loving every minute of the performance. The singers came on in costume to do their bits down at the front, while an animated representation of the story went on above their heads on a large screen. Best of all, a giant hologram of Richard Burton's head narrated the whole thing in his wonderful voice, and at various points in the show a huge tripod fighting machine descended from the ceiling to shoot members of the audience with its heat ray.
Excellent stuff. We enjoyed it so much that we're going to play the CD on the way to Newcastle today, just so we can sing along.
Have a great Christmas, everybody, and I'll see you all in the New Year!
Dave booked tickets for the stage show of Jeff Wayne's War Of The Worlds months ago, and finally it was time to go see it last night. We hadn't managed to get our tickets delivered to us, but we left in more than enough time to collect them at the box office. I hadn't been to the Dome in years and it turned out to be quite a spectacular venue, though the number of people crammed into the "streets" round the outside made it impossible to find anywhere we could eat a proper meal before the show. The show itself was incredibly cool and not in the least what I'd been expecting, but was occasionally so loud as to be impossible to hear clearly. Then, the boat ride up the Thames afterwards was great fun, but bloody freezing and accidentally getting off at the wrong stop meant we didn't get home until 1am.
Overally, though, it was an excellent night, helped emormously by the fact that I didn't have to get up this morning (I was briefly tempted to go riding after all, but decided to go back to sleep instead). There was a full string section and a modern band up on stage, being conducted by Jeff Wayne himself, who was clearly loving every minute of the performance. The singers came on in costume to do their bits down at the front, while an animated representation of the story went on above their heads on a large screen. Best of all, a giant hologram of Richard Burton's head narrated the whole thing in his wonderful voice, and at various points in the show a huge tripod fighting machine descended from the ceiling to shoot members of the audience with its heat ray.
Excellent stuff. We enjoyed it so much that we're going to play the CD on the way to Newcastle today, just so we can sing along.
Have a great Christmas, everybody, and I'll see you all in the New Year!
