War of the worlds – theatre review

When you think of War of the Worlds, you might think of Jeff Wayne’s epic musical adaptation of the original novel by HG Wells, or that okay-ish film with a young Dakota Fanning.

What you probably wouldn’t think of, is tiny little models and clever camera ‘trickery’ to help bring the whole thing to life on the big screen and stage. That’s exactly what we got at the Belgrade Theatre, Coventry this week, for the new War of the Worlds adaptation, supported by Lancaster Arts.

Such incredible creativity in what turned out to almost be a ‘spin-off’ or sub-plot of the original – set in the 1960s, the story was a sensational, dark and contemporary version highlighting particularly the themes of xenophobia (which could unfortunately, quite easily be applied to the modern day). The videography was at times so immersive that you almost forgot the reality of the what you were witnessing, so creative was the curation of the scenes! It takes some getting used to, to not be addressed as an audience at the theatre, and instead to see such close-up and emotive views of the characters’ faces.

It’s almost like a zoomed in spin off / focused mini story on the backdrop of War of the Worlds – and that’s not a bad thing since I love an “and then” or “what if” story moreso than a blow by blow of an original. Really, the story itself could have been applied to any form of apocalypse and it wasn’t a scene by scene retelling of the novel (or so my dad told me, since I’ve never read it!). He definitely enjoyed it just as much, if not more, than I did – he was very impressed with the creativity of the sound design, the puppetry and the “otherworldly” nature. For me, it was the pure imagination it must have taken to create something so intricate and intense. Of course, it put us in the mood to to listen some of that chilling and iconic musical – and that’s exactly what we did on the way home!

Sets itself apart from the film and the musical, visually stunning and incredibly creative, ‘War of the Worlds’ is well worth a watch.

(With thanks to the Belgrade for the press tickets in exchange for an honest review.) Images: Ed Waring