No Oldfield, but his bells still do the business
Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells
Royal Festival Hall, London HHHHH
Tubular Bells has a curious place in pop history, being both legendary and largely forgotten. It sold 15million copies, fathered five follow-ups and achieved a rare double by featuring in both the Opening Ceremony of the London Olympics and the horror movie The Exorcist.
But while its contemporary, Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side Of The Moon, is still selling today, Mike Oldfield’s magnum opus is in danger of becoming best known for launching Richard Branson’s career. A dubious honour, especially as Branson disliked the name and tried to change it to Breakfast In Bed. Now it is a live show, staged by the production company behind Peppa Pig: My First Concert. The idea is to take Tubular Bells on a world tour that will run and run, Covid permitting, until 2023, the 50th anniversary of the original release. But this version, too, is a curious thing.
Oldfield himself, who famously played every instrument on the album, now plays none. He is listed along with the musical director Robin A. Smith as having ‘reimagined’ the music, yet he doesn’t even appear for a curtain call. It’s Hamlet without the Bard.
There’s a polished nine-piece band, but the only familiar name is actor Samuel West, replacing the late Vivian Stanshall as the (prerecorded) master of ceremonies. Where Oldfield ought to be, centre stage, you find a troupe of acrobats. They’re gifted, to my untrained eye, but also incongruous. Drawing applause whenever one of them stands on top of another, they keep treading on the toes of the music.
Oldfield’s masterpiece is at risk of being not merely instrumental but incidental. When you concentrate on it, though, it stands up well. The opening theme retains its chiming charm, the less celebrated sections add drama, and the reimagining deftly reduces the hippie longueurs. There are lovely solos for guitar and cello, and the bells do the business. The experience is like rereading a good book, albeit with acrobatics attached. The fans greet it like an old friend from university, which is what, for many, it was.