Review: Wilko: Love and Death and Rock ‘n’ Roll (Leicester Square Theatre)

Review by Daz Gale

⭐️⭐️

Musicals about legendary artists have entertained audiences in the West End for decades, with Tina about to wrap its sensational seven-year run at the Aldwych Theatre. A short walk from there will find you at Leicester Square Theatre - more commonly home to comedy, it is now the sight of a new play with music (careful not to call this one a musical) about the life of Wilko Johnson as Wilko: Love and Death and Rock ‘n’ Roll transfers not long after a run at Southwark Playhouse earlier this year. Would I find myself rocked by this show, or would it prove as uninspiring as a visit to the chain store of the same name?

If you are unfamiliar with Wilko Johnson, he was the founder of Dr Feelgood, a band that has been called the “godfathers of punk”, though he may be more known to the younger generation for his role in Game Of Thrones. Wilko: Love and Death and Rock ‘n’ Roll tells the story of a day that changed everything, when he was told he had inoperable cancer and given a year to live. Rocked with that news, Wilko sets out to make his final year count and tells the story of his rise to fame and his career up until that point, with a miraculous twist in the tale.

I have to admit being unfamiliar with Wilko Johnson personally, and that might partly explain why I struggled to connect with this show. That said, shows such as this should transcend generations, and their ability to connect should not be dependent on prior knowledge or even fandom of said artist. I can name other shows I have seen where I went in completely unaware of the artist's story or catalogue and came out of there a fan. Similarly, there are times I may not have been a fan of the music but still found myself a fan of the show. Sadly, neither happened for me this time.

Trying to pinpoint exactly why I had such an adverse reaction, I came to the conclusion that Wilko is an example of one of those shows where nothing goes together. All of the elements are there, but they don’t gel together cohesively, creating a production that is inconsistent and incohesive. In musical terms, it is like a group of solo artists all had their own idea on how a song should have sounded, and rather than try to come up with a harmonious way of making it work, they all did their own thing anyway, and the result is something quite noisy and uncomfortable.

A huge problem in Wilko is the writing itself. Though I have been a fan of writer Jonathan Maitland myself through previous works, something has gone seriously wrong here. The show describes itself as a “moving, exciting mixture of drama, comedy and live rock ‘n’ roll,” and therein lies the problem. It just doesn’t know what it wants to be, and that becomes clear to see in a tone that jumps around constantly, never quite settling on one style or contrasting styles that fit together. I get the impression this is still very much a work in progress, with a note in the programme talking about a certain line that proved to be the biggest laugh in a previous iteration of this show. That line was notably absent this time around… so why are the successful elements being taken out? I haven’t seen any other version of this show so I have nothing to compare it to, but all I can do is take this production on face value, and that is, sadly, something quite messy.

The writing feels stilted and unnatural, lacking in subtlety to the extent that certain lines feel like they have been hammered in with a rhythm stick. The biggest example of this is in the frankly absurd characterisation of the doctor that appears in Act Two, who mentions needing a lunch break during Wilko’s 12 hour operation… as a misguided attempt at humour, with a series of subsequent lines that may well hold the record for the most times I have cringed in a matter of minutes. There is no stability or coherence to the story at all, seemingly jumping decades at a time without making any reference to it and just hoping the audience is keeping up. A reference to Wilko’s assumingly adult son comes out of nowhere and left me wondering where this son magically appeared from? (I know about the birds and the bees, don’t worry) while the deterioration of Wilko’s wife also played out briskly and with no emotion whatsoever. Though Maitland began working on the play before Wilko’s death, the fact that the death is not included in the show feels like a misstep, ending on an ambiguous and underwhelming note rather than giving some closure to this jumbled-up story.

When it comes to the direction, it doesn’t fare much better, feeling like it completely lacks in direction and never knowing what to do with the cast. Some ill-advised choices sees cast members walk on and off with no real thought, with pretty much every character apart from the title role reduced to one-dimensional caricatures. The director seems to have taken the note that Wilko had a signature move with his guitar and rammed it down the audience's throats in a move that is so overdone, it becomes tiresome quickly. 

The performance I attended was marred with lighting and sound issues, with a show-stop even occurring at one point due to the lighting being on the audience as opposed to the stage. Though that can be forgiven as every show can have the odd issue, I have to say the lighting design in general proved to be incredibly problematic and not thought out as you would expect. The lights regularly blinded the audience to an uncomfortable level, and this seemed to be due to a lack of awareness of where their lights are facing and how best to use them, likely to this space in particular but perhaps in general with lighting that doesn’t cut it in a professional production. The overall quality just wasn’t there at all, and that was regrettably the one consistency in the story.

Music is at the heart of Wilko and that is where the cast really came into their own, with Johnson Willis coming alive on the musical performances as Wilko Johnson, and Jon House an underused but capable leading man in his musical moments as Lee Brilleaux. With the cast playing instruments and singing, this is where Wilko is at its best, with a prolonged encore featuring different special guests each night, by far the best moments of the show. When music takes a back seat and the narrative is left to play out, this is where shortcomings are seen with acting that I unfortunately can only describe as wooden. I would say this is more a fault of the writing and direction than that of the cast, however. 

The fact the strongest moments are the musical numbers leaves me thinking the creative team have ventured down the wrong road here and may have been better off moving this play more into a concert or even a fully-fledged musical, though there is a moment where Wilko turns his nose up at jukebox musicals in general in a rather unnecessary line, deriding their existence. What I will say is there is a real art to jukebox musicals - they can be full of richness and subtlety, and those are two things Wilko is sorely lacking. The overall message of Wilko taking his terminal diagnosis and living his best life should be inspiring, and still is to an extent, but the story has been lost in translation and needs some work to get that message across. While this show will appeal to those who are already familiar with the music and the story and are likely already fans of Wilko, there isn’t much here to entice new audiences. As a piece of theatre, it is incredibly flawed and, in my opinion, is in need of a lot of love to ensure it gets any sort of further life.

Wilko: Love and Death and Rock ‘n’ Roll plays at Leicester Square Theatre until 27th July. Tickets from https://www.leicestersquaretheatre.com/show/wilko-love-and-death-and-rock-n-roll/ 

Photos by Nick Haeffner