There are three men on this little blue planet that will forever be associated with Martian invasions: sci-fi pioneer HG Wells, writer/director Orson Welles and rock opera composer Jeff Wayne, all of whom have created key versions of War Of The Worlds.
The sole survivor, Jeff Wayne, scorched himself into the cultural memory with his late '70s musical blockbuster, famously starring Richard Burton and David Essex. Indeed, whenever you mention War Of The Worlds most everyone older than 30 will respond with the ear-worm classic: “Dun-dun dun, da-da-da, da-da-da”.
The release of a fully re-recorded and expanded double album and the world premiere of the new and holographic enhanced stage show will doubtlessly generate a new wave of interest in Wells' original 1897 classic. Reflecting on one of sci-fi's truly defining moments, Wayne says, “He was writing it through the eyes of Victorian humanity, when all we would have had to defend ourselves would have been rifles and cannons against this super-intelligent force invading Earth with incredible machines and amazing weaponry.”
However, Wells' vision extended well beyond interplanetary war. Not only was he was a utopian socialist but a man deeply concerned with the emergence of technological power. As Wayne explains, “He predicted the atomic bomb in a book he wrote before the First World War.”
Dig a little deeper though and beneath Wells' generally liberal views, there's a tantalising hint of darkness. “In the War Of The Worlds he created an artilleryman who had a vision for mankind's survival which involved taking the best of those who survived underground to build the brave new world,” Wayne elaborates. “But deep within that is the consideration of who has the choice of picking those people who go underground; and from that you learn that he had a bit of leaning towards what the Nazis believed in.”
Fast forward 40 years and cross the Atlantic and War Of The Worlds became real for one calamitous night in 1938 when Orson Welles terrified America with his devious and ingenious Mercury Theatre radio version. “It was pretty convincing because, y'know, Welles set it in contemporary America and did it as little newsflashes coming in and interrupting an orchestra playing until all of America panicked.”
Roll forward another four decades and amid the furore of punk and the mirror balls of disco, Jeff Wayne's grand rock operatic vision of Martian might once again conquered the world. The original double vinyl record sold more than 15 million and sat in the UK charts for five years. “If you'd asked me before it came out what was my dream for it, the honest answer would have been to get a release because my record company, CBS, had the right to refuse,” Wayne recalls. “So, I would have died a happy man if it came out and made the UK charts for one week.” Jump to this week and Wells leaps into the digital age as Jeff Wayne brings War Of The Worlds back to the stage and onto iTunes. Starring Liam Neeson, Gary Barlow, Joss Stone and Ricky from the Kaiser Chiefs, the 2012 version is bigger and more holographic. “Liam will appear in three different ways in the upcoming show, two of which are holographic, one of which is a full body hologram where Liam interacts with the musicians on stage and evens hands a glass of water to one of the live characters.”
While that's all appropriately spectacular, the burning question is why? Isn't there just a hint of shameless cash-in here? Acknowledging this, Wayne says, “It's a fair question and I had to convince myself that it was genuinely valid. I wanted to do it for the right reasons: to expand my story, expand my score and use today's recording techniques. Y'know, I composed and produced the original when the punk revolution was happening and disco was king of the dancefloor and I was influenced by what was going on around me, but that's all in the past now.”
With its blend of 1890s Fabianism, eugenic stain and futuristic storytelling, War Of The Worlds is anything but 'all in the past' and, as one the trio of who have helped to immortalise it, Jeff Wayne is hoping to keep the Martian terror real enough for another century.
WHAT: War Of The Worlds (Sony)
