Fresh from the press...
On the trail of the real Tommy
By Charles Hutchinson »
THE Who’s Tommy has had several lives, but has it ever really found its identity? Not so much Who’s Tommy, more, what’s Tommy?
It began as a rock opera on vinyl in the days when concept albums were a work of art; it spawned a Ken Russell film with Tina Turner’s Acid Queen, Elton John’s huge boots and Roger Daltrey’s big, girly hair, and even an unlikely cover version – a medley of Pinball Wizard and See Me Feel Me by Eurovision poodles The New Seekers that reached number 16 in the charts, pop pickers.
Pete Townshend knocked Tommy into Broadway shape in 1993 as a stage musical with one extra song, I Believe My Own Eyes, and it is this version that Robert Readman, director, co-designer and Who fan, has brought alive at the Grand Opera House in its York premiere.
Once alive, after a technically demanding overture that introduces wartime London in 1940 on stage and multiple screen images, Tommy is still a difficult beast to tame. Readman and his cast decide to enjoy the ride, even if Townshend’s study of the effects of childhood isolation and sudden fame from pinball wizardry is still essentially a bunch of psychedelic baloney, Tommy’s Holiday Camp and all.
The double-decker set has Dan Hield’s band playing songs familiar and not so familiar behind screens on the top deck with a gap in the middle for solo singing spotlights.
On ground zero are the banks of screens – courtesy of Boomerang Creative from Copmanthorpe – that convey the passage of time from 1940 to 1963. The front door leads into the house of Captain (Callum O’Connell in his stage comeback) and Mrs Walker (Alicia Roberts), where a sudden shock turns young Tommy (first Kierron Moore, then Charles Merritt) deaf, dumb and blind.
Clark Howard, initially the Narrator, transforms himself into the older Tommy, and while Clark may prefer to stick to the drums in his band Hungry Ghosts, he is a natural leading man in musicals with a pedigree established on the music performance course at York St John University.
See Me, Feel Me and I’m Free are both sung with power and feeling.
James Fackrell’s dodgy Uncle Ernie, Alex Papachristou’s peroxide Cousin Kevin, James Browne’s scene-stealing The Hawker and Victoria Lightfoot’s Gypsy all maximise their cameos and Fackrell’s choreography draws an enthusiastic response from the ensemble.
The last 15 minutes make no more sense than they ever did but with real fireworks and Who classics Pinball Wizard and Listening To You, Tommy certainly rocks.
The Who’s Tommy, York Stage Musicals, Grand Opera House, York, tonight and tomorrow, 7.30pm. Box office:
12-09-2008 by Dan
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