AD | Tickets gifted in exchange of an honest review
CW/TW: Adult themes including death, serious illness, emotional abuse, physical violence, and strong language.
In 2012 Wilko Johnson the iconic Rockstar was told he had inoperable cancer and a year to live, but Wilko Johnson refused treatment and decided to live his life to the fullest. Writer, Jonathan Maitland, writes a great biopic tribute to the iconic Rockstar, and uses some of Wilko's words and music to great this piece of gig theatre. Live music is integrated throughout with Wilko’s most well known songs and also related to the bits of his story that are been told, so, if you go and watch, be ready to stand up from your chair at the end.
Wilko (played by Johnson Willis) receives the news of him having cancer, which he seems to dissociate from his being. He then records all of the memories of his life, sharing it as the main narrator. Director Dugald Bruce Lockhart directs transitions between a moment of life to another that are very smooth and we are taken though the 80s, early 2000s and at the very unexpected end of Wilko’s life.
We travel into Wilko’s beginnings in music and in love, “We need to sing about where we live” is one of the lines that hits, and is well delivered by Johnson Willis, who gave good credit to Wilko’s soul. The British culture is pictured in this self-derision show, that the performers embodied very well.
Johnson Willis, playing Wilko has this great physicality and presence on stage, as well as the other performers that are playing different characters, which serve the story and its episodes. Jon House took the lead with playing Lee Brilleaux, “with an X!”, leader of Dr Feelgood, a band that will have its splits, but still remain one of the biggest bands in the UK, known as the precursor of punk music. Also in the band Georgina Field, Sparko a fiery blond and David John, the drummer Big Figure. Georgina Fairbanks has done one of the best interpretation of that time period, playing Irene Knight, Wilko’s wife. Their encounter, marriage, ups and downs are paced by the Wilko’s growing celebrity and rehearsals with his first band.
Wilko had this selfishness which he apparently did not care to admit, and this characteristic of him is coming back a lot with his wife and his first band. The cancer is central to story, but put on the side when it’s time to perform, even just to play guitar. When Wilko’s has the guitar in hand, there was nothing around but his world, and Johnson Willis showed that in a very powerful way.
More than the passion for music, life and death are two themes that are challenged all along the play. Love and friendships are getting challenged as well because of the passion for music, and the passion for music is challenged because of the idea of death and how life should be lived.
All of this rollercoaster is supported by the lighting (by Lighting Designer James Stokes) and the change of costumes, that allowed the audience to be immersed in all of the different periods of Wilko’s life. Coming back to the physicality, the way the performers hold their characters so strongly made every bit believable and some of them very touching, and very funny.
The writing is complex, the directing precise, Wilko: Love and Death and Rock ’n' Roll, will probably be part of Wilko’s tribute archives within the ensemble of all of the resources that already exist around him.
★★★★★
Wilko: Love and Death and Rock ’n' Roll, plays at the Southwark Playhouse Borough until the 19th of April.
Comments