The soundtrack of my late teenage years was heavily influenced by John Peel, who introduced me to bands like Family, The Incredible String Band and Tyrannosaurus Rex, whose four albums I treasured, and still do (I’ve recently bought them on CD). Peel thought Bolan sold out when Tyrannosaurus Rex became T. Rex (a name change that was Tony Visconti’s idea, it seems). I fought this for a while, as Bolan was by now a musical hero of mine, but it wasn’t long before I was in agreement. It was all downhill from A Beard of Stars, the last Tyrannosaurus Rex album, a masterpiece. My view is that Bolan’s ego smothered and killed his genius, but I couldn’t resist this biographical show on my doorstep, well, in Kingston.
It’s a huge biographical arc, something like fifteen years, which is ambitious and at first seems rushed. They badly neglect the period from 1968 to 1970, the four folk / psychedelic / mystical albums, each bettering the last (well, I would think that, wouldn’t I). If I was nit-picking, there are a number of historical inaccuracies, like his audition piece for Simon Napier-Bell being a song he wrote three or four years later. Sometimes I thought Bolan was a bit tongue-in-cheek, like the infamous guitar lead in his back pocket on Top of the Pops, and the show sometimes has a bit of a tongue-in-cheek quality about it too. It’s at its strongest musically, with a judicious smattering of other people’s songs that fit the story (who knew Helen Shapiro was a friend and early colleague?!); music director John Maher has done a great job.
The production values are a bit AmDram and the staging doesn’t flow well enough, with some scene breaks way too long. In truth, the Rose isn’t the right theatre for it. Unlike a proscenium theatre, there’s no hiding place. To be honest, I think they could do with a stage director, as John Maher also directs. It could also do with losing 10-20 minutes; it doesn’t really sustain its three hours. As is customary with this genre, it ends with a mini-concert, with the audience on its feet. Both the cast and band are good, with George Maguire (promoted from Ray’s younger brother Dave in the Kinks musical Sunny Afternoon) perfectly flamboyant as Bolan, but please don’t get me on to the wig, or indeed the wigs in general.
It’s not up there with other bio-musicals like Jersey Boys, Beautiful and Sunny Afternoon, but I’m glad I caught it, though it was surreal looking around at T.Rex fans now in their sixties (senior concessions!) wearing their feather boas, pieces of which I was picking out of my jumper on the way home.
Gareth's Culture and Travel Blog 