Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of The War of the Worlds arrives in Brighton

It’s a concept which returns to tour in its stage version this year with dates including the Brighton Centre on March 27 and 28

The Life Begins Again tour of Jeff’s multi-award winning masterpiece comes with a starry cast: Strictly Come Dancing’s Kevin Clifton as The Artilleryman; Blue’s Duncan James as Parson Nathaniel; Steps’ Claire Richards as Beth, The Parson’s Wife; Inglorious’ Nathan James as The Voice of Humanity; Anna Marie Wayne as Carrie, The Journalist’s Fiancée; and The Moody Blues’ Justin Hayward as The Sung Thoughts of The Journalist.

And as Jeff says, if someone had told him back in 1978 that he would have been contemplating this tour in 2022, he would have considered them “frankly bonkers.”

“But actually we were meant to be doing this pretty much a year earlier to the day but like so many artists and bands and shows that were cancelled or postponed we’re back now and ready to go.

“Inevitably I think anybody that has spent whatever part of their career in live performance, no matter what their style is, has missed just being out there. Performing live is like a drug and suddenly we were being weaned off and that was really tough. It gives you the means to express yourself and so yes, the whole thing was trying for sure, not be able to do it but obviously there was a lot going on, much bigger things, so I guess our position just had to be that we accepted it.”

But the lovely thing is that the show and the songs are all coming back as fresh as ever. Listen, for instance, to Forever Autumn and it still gives you the tingle that it did all those years ago. In fact Jeff is delighted to be issuing the song as a new three-track EP, featuring Justin Hayward’s original 1978 version and also a duet version and also a new version sung by Justin.

“So many people say that they have a connection with that song and for me it has always been a very special song.

“At heart it’s about the lyrics. I’m very proud of the orchestration and the sound but the lyrics seem to resonate with so many people. It’s about losing somebody that you love and I think that gives the song connection with people.

“It feels like it still has a lot of relevance.”

Relevance indeed to the pandemic as does the show itself.

“The heart of it is H G Wells’ writing which was not just a visionary story about aliens arriving – in Surrey, in fact. It’s about the incredible machinery and weaponry and super-ability, and that’s startling enough but the heart of the story is about the underlying themes of hope and invasion and faith.”

Again elements that make the show resonate so much still today, particularly again in that pandemic context.

To obtain the rights to do the album in the first place, Jeff and his father had to go through the H G Wells estate, speaking to H G Wells’ son Frank and his agents.

“After the album came out and was enjoying great success, I appeared with Frank at a sci-fi fair.

“It was the first time I had met him since he had agreed to us doing it. And the lovely thing is that he said his father would have been proud of what we did.

“And I think the point is that we stayed true. We wanted to make it very much a musical interpretation of H G Wells’ The War Of The Worlds. And I’m still very protective about it even to this day and especially the The (as in The War Of Worlds).

“So often the The is left off the title and it really matters. The point was that H G Wells was talking about the definitive war of all worlds. The The is really important. We even started a society to protect the The!”

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