Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds: The New Generation [DVD]

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After Dean produced some designs, Wayne felt the work did not quite fit for what he had in mind, and proceeded to look elsewhere. As a “standard edition DVD” there’s only minimal special features in the form of interviews with the major cast players; a couple of which have been available online for a while as it is. A company of soldiers is deployed at the common, and that evening an injured and exhausted Artilleryman wanders into the Journalist's house and tells him his comrades have been killed by fighting machines—tripod vehicles built and controlled by Martians, each armed with its own Heat-Ray.

Jeff Wayne conducts The Black Smoke Band and the ULLAdubULLA Strings as he has done on tours before. The process involved a re-fit of Wayne's home studio, including the installation of a high end Pro Tools rig and a surround sound monitoring system.

This was performed by both Anna-Marie Wayne and Newton Faulkner as their respective characters at the beginning of Act II. The album had a positive review in Record Mirror, with reviewer Bev Briggs declaring it as "four sides of sheer excellence" and after reading the novel and feature film, the album is "the most easily stomachable of the lot. The cast included Michael Sheen as the journalist, Taron Egerton as the artilleryman, Ade Edmondson as Ogilvy, Theo James as Parson Nathaniel and Jeff Wayne's granddaughter Anna Marie Wayne as Carrie, the wife of the journalist. As with the album, the musical was a family affair with Jeff Wayne’s children appearing in the production.

He approached John Pasche, who went on to design the logo on the front cover, and direct the overall design of the record's sleeve which features paintings from three artists: Geoff Taylor, Mike Trim, and Peter Goodfellow. Westlife's Brian McFadden played the role of the Sung Thoughts of the Journalist (played by Martin on the previous tour), Les Misérables' Carrie Hope Fletcher played Beth (played by Kerry Ellis on the 2012 tour), and Jason Donovan reprised his role of Parson Nathaniel. This release was dedicated to Falzon, who died on 23 June 2020 from germ cell cancer, and included link to a donation page for the Chris O'Brien Lifehouse where he was treated. Set just after the end of World War II, he is dying, but now speaks about the extent of atrocities committed during the recent war, how human beings can, in some shapes and forms, be as destructive as the Martians had been in his novel. Many years after its first release, and by which time it was a classic album in many households, Jeff Wayne created a live tour to perform his work live to the masses.Driven to suicide by intense despair and loneliness, he surrenders to a fighting machine but realizes it is inert, the Martian inside dead. The final effect was achieved with a multitrack " voicebox guitar effect" devised and voiced by Jo Partridge, who plays guitar on the album [4] and made the sound "as dramatic as possible. In 1998, a real-time strategy game, Jeff Wayne's The War of the Worlds, was created by Rage Software for personal computers. Throughout mid to late 2012, tracks from The New Generation were released through various radio shows, which included all the guest artists tracks and a premier of "The Eve of the War".

However, Wayne went on to read Wells's book "three or four times" and saw the 1953 film adaption, and decided it was the most suitable for a musical adaptation. It was supported by an arena tour, followed by a stage show adaptation, running at the Dominion Theatre in London's West End from February to April 2016. The album won two Ivor Novello Awards, including one for Wayne and Osborne for Best Instrumental or Popular Orchestral Work. The album was one of the first recorded on 48-track, which was achieved by Maglink, a prototype system that allowed the synchronisation of two 24-track Studer A80 machines with a SMPTE timecode reserved on two of the available 48 tracks.For items that are dispatched using our standard service, we ask that you wait 14 days from the date of dispatch before reporting any items as undelivered. Since the album was released, Wayne has tried to be more faithful to his original version by toning down the synthesizer elements and re-arranging the string orchestra when he performed the album live in 2014 and 2018, but keeping his new compositions and Liam Neeson's narration entirely unchanged. Links on our site are monetised, it means we can keep our platform free to use, without compromising on impartiality. The New Generation features Academy Award nominated actor Liam Neeson as the Narrator, formerly played by Richard Burton. Jonathan Vickers reprised his role as the NASA controller, and Stephanie Aves joined the company as Vera May.

Wayne spent three months locating Frank Wells, and found his ideas were well received because it was the first adaptation that stayed true to the story.As expected, the music is first-rate; certainly, it’s bombastic and its roots as a 70s concept album are evident. A short animated prequel to the story was also presented in the style of the upcoming feature film detailing the Martians' ecological destruction of their own world (originally made for the 1998 computer game) and their preparations to invade Earth. Justin Hayward, lead singer and guitarist for the Moody Blues, sings the song " Forever Autumn" (sung from the perspective of the Journalist), which was a hit single from the album.