The Martians are coming!
Legendary composer Jeff Wayne on his rock opera that is returning to Ireland
COMPOSER Jeff Wayne describes himself as a ‘sort of a back room boy’ for rock star David Essex when his father brought him a novel by HG Wells.
‘I was writing and composing and touring with an artist named David Essex with whom I had a great run of hit singles and albums,’ Wayne says, speaking from his Hertfordshire home.
‘My dad came over one night to wish me good luck with a tour I was about to go on with David and he said “Here is a story I thought you might like to read.”’
Wayne’s father knew the composer had always wanted to put a tale to music and felt he would enjoy the HG Wells classic which was published at the latter end of the 1970s.
So Jeff took the tale on his tour bus and was immediately enchanted with The War of the Worlds, a science fiction tale of Martian invasion that he’d go about turning into a chart-topping album and now a multi media stage show, a rock opera of the modern day that still has audiences on the edge of their seats.
Jeff Wayne’s The War Of The Worlds is embarking on The Spirit Of Man Tour next year and tickets are already flying for the 3Arena date in Dublin on March 30, 2025.
If you listen to the original double album from 1978, it’s a dramatic tale with an allstar cast of Richard Burton, David Essex, Phil Lynott, Julie Covington and Justin Hayward of the Moody Blues.
BUT since 2006, the story has finally made its way onto the stage with a series of actors and performers playing the roles that others enshrined on vinyl.
‘I conduct the show on stage and since we started touring in 2006 in our West End of London production that ran for a while, I have never missed a show,’ Jeff says.
‘I find conducting the most exhilarating part of live work — particularly if it is your own creation. We had never performed The War of the Worlds live in any form until then,’ says Jeff, revealing that the way of staging the concerts and how to present it took some years to develop.
But since 2006, fans have been flocking to see the live performance in all its splendour.
‘Who knew when I composed and produced this and all the people I was fortunate to attract to this that we would be doing this today?’ says Jeff. ‘In fact I remember being interviewed and asked what my aspirations were for the original double album and my answer was ‘Just to see it in the UK album charts for one week and I will feel satisfied’ not knowing that it would spend 330 consecutive weeks and go on to sell around the world and have hit singles and club renditions. It just got accepted - it is thrilling and it remains thrilling. I have so
many fond memories all the way through and up to today.’
Richard Burton appeared on the original album as the Journalist, the story’s narrator telling the tale of a Martian invasion six years previous.
Though he passed away in 1984, Burton appeared in the touring show as a 3D head until Wayne wanted to expand the performance to include more of the story.
And it was an Irishman whom Jeff felt had the depth and gravitas to bring the same emotion as the famous Welshman to the story.
Now Liam Neeson is the narrator of the tale, appearing on stage as a 3D hologram since 2012.
‘I had to accept that if I wanted to expand the story I had to start again with a new actor playing the role of the journalist who is recounting his story of survival from the Martian invasion some six years earlier,’ says Jeff.
‘We didn’t have a list, we just had one name in mind and that was Liam’s. He is very similar to Richard in the sense of someone of that stature and quality but getting that person you need a lot of good luck.
‘We found Liam’s agent in New York and approached him with the idea and we got a very fast turnaround from Liam who was interested.’
Wayne boarded a plane to go and see the bg man from Ballymena in the States and got quite the surprise at their meeting.
‘He revealed he had bought the original album when it came out on cassette and knew the album and the story so well he actually sang one of our songs that has been a hit called Forever Autumn. It was the rub of the green times a million,’ Jeff says, laughing. ‘Liam Neeson was on board and I don’t think I needed a plane to fly home, I was so excited.’
Casting for the new show is just beginning and recent productions have included the likes of Duncan James from Blue, Claire Richards, Gary Barlow, Marti Pellow and many more.
Already there are talks of a 50th anniversary show in 2028 where Wayne is contemplating bringing his friend Phil Lynott into the performance in some way.
‘I was introduced to Phil by his management company,’ says Jeff. ‘I was a fan of Thin Lizzy and I knew a track they had recorded called Fool’s Gold. The first 20 seconds or so Phil actually speaks and he does so quite dramatically and then it goes into a song as he is the lead singer, and I thought “Gosh, he has the vocal qualities and a real understanding of drama, I wonder if he’d be interested in becoming Parson Nathaniel, a parson who is losing all belief in mankind and feels that the Martians in the story are going to take over the world?” Phil was up for it immediately but the only thing was he was about to go on tour with Thin Lizzy so I had to wait a period of time for him to come back. But once he was back it was magic.’
It is poignant, Wayne says, to put others in Phil’s role but they are hoping to bring him back in some technological form in 2028.
‘I did speak to Phil a couple of weeks before he passed. He was already in hospital and he gave me a book of prose he had written on our last session together and wrote some lovely words in it. Philomena, his mother, went to two of our shows, one in Dublin and one in Belgium and we kept in touch until she passed away.’ Each tour of the show is even more dramatic than the last — there are Martians landing in the middle of the audience, firing out flames and performers popping up among them too making sure the multi media spectacular gives everyone in the audience those hair raising moments, As for the tale itself, though written in the late 1800s by HG Wells, it’s a tale that still resonates today.
‘What HG wrote wasn’t a ‘shoot em up knock em down ‘science fiction story,’ says Wayne.
‘He did use Martians invading England with a view to spreading around the world invading. They were analogies for any nation or group of people who invaded other countries and that was fundamentally wrong, And underneath all that there are stories of love and hope and faith — no matter what faith you have. There is a message in that,’ Wayne says and in this day and age, who could not agree?
The War Of The Worlds is at the 3Arena on March 30, 2025, tickets from ticketmaster.ie.