Last Updated on July 5, 2025
The Canvey Island Mozart is Reborn
4.0 out of 5.0 starsJust over a week ago I was reviewing Pete Townshend of The Who’s Quadrophenia, a Mod Ballet, at Sadler’s Wells. Tonight is the press night for Wilko: Love and Death and Rock and Roll, which is having its latest run at the Leicester Square Theatre. It’s a biographic play with music about Canvey Island R&B legend and Dr Feelgood co-founder Wilko Johnson. Maybe it’s the summer heat turning my head, but it feels to me as if old rockers are having a cultural moment. What next? A ballet set to the music of Black Sabbath?
Guitarist Wilko Johnson and Dr. Feelgood were a bridge between the 1960’s British blues era with bands like The Who and The Rolling Stones playing raw Chicago blues, the pub rock scene of the 1970s, and the rawness and energy of the punk and New Wave bands that exploded out of the London suburbs in the mid 1970s. Wilko’s scratchy Bo Diddley inspired fingerstyle electric guitar playing and his aggressive machine gun posturing influenced some of seminal guitarists of the next generation such as The Gang of Four’s Andy Gill, Paul Weller of The Jam and Will Sergeant of Echo and the Bunnymen.
Written by playwright and former BBC journalist Jonathan Maitland, Wilko: Love and Death and Rock and Roll opens in 2012. Wilko has just been informed that he has pancreatic cancer and only one year to live. Refusing any treatment, the diagnosis inspires the musician to live out each of his remaining months as fully as possible. He says “I feel like someone plugged me in”, becoming a poster boy for the terminally ill in the process.
Much of the play is in flashback. We see Wilko’s teenage home life with an abusive father and snobbish lower middle-class mum. The young Wilko, whose real name was John Wilkinson, was actually a bright and academic if non-conformist grammar school student with a love for astronomy and English literature. Maitland’s brilliant script is steeped in literary references with nods to William Blake, Joseph Conrad, William Shakespeare and William Wordsworth as the narrative charts Wilko’s journey through his early skiffle group, an English degree at Newcastle University, and then into a teaching job and the formation of Dr Feelgood.
Johnson Willis who plays Wilko looks the part of the musician in his older years. His commanding central portrayal is mannered, verging on the camp, like a bald rock’n roll Frank Spencer jacked up on amphetamines as he pulls out his machine gun moves. Willis’ voice is an adenoidal whine and he thrashes away at his black Fender Telecaster guitar with its signature red scratchplate with something approaching the intensity of the original. Willis gets under the skin of Johnson playing him as a Essex-born William Blakean visionary, “I can see the beauty in the brutality”, as well as being a self-confessed w..k.r.
The real-life Wilko was accompanied for much of his life journey by his “Canvey Island girl”, his much put upon but adoring wife Irene played by the vivacious Georgina Fairbanks. Fairbanks is convincing as the lovestruck Irene, full of energy and authentic Essex charm. It’s a lovely performance.
The cast members take on the roles of the other Feelgoods plus a whole host of other parts as doctors, nurses, Wilko’s family and fans. Jon House makes a convincing Lee Brilleaux, the Feelgood’s frontman, bringing an air of menace to the stage combined with some razor-sharp blues harmonica. He is a more down-to-earth foil for the out-of-control narcissism (“I’ve got something you haven’t got – talent!”) and creative flights of fancy of his bandmate.
David John plays the drummer optimistically called the “Big Figure” and Georgina Field is the male bass player Sparko who strides back on forth on the stage. Both actors do a fine job in their supporting roles.
Director Dugald Bruce-Lockhart and designer Nicolai Hart-Hansen have set the stage very simply with a purple curtain at the back with a couple of amplifiers and a drum kit in front. This press night wasn’t without technical problems. At the start of the show the bass was too quiet with the snare drum and vocals dominating all the other elements in the audio mix. Further problems with the lights caused an unplanned hiatus in the first half but the technical shenanigans added to the authenticity of the performance.
2025 sees the 50th anniversary of the release of the Feelgood’s seminal debut album Down by the Jetty which stuck out like festering sore thumb in the sea of soft rock, novelty records and progressive rock that dominated the singles and album charts of the time. The Feelgood’s achieved their greatest commercial success after their Canvey island Mozart was ousted from the group. Wilko went on to form the Solid Senders, then became one of Ian Dury’s Blockheads, finally ending his music career as the front man in his own the Wilko Johnson band. The paradox about Wilko’s life and career is that he became more famous for his appearances in TV blockbuster Game of Thrones as mute executioner Ser Ilyn Payne than for his musical career.
There is a problem with the show in that the rhythm section of guitar, bass and drums were very average compared to the tight edgy Feelgoods. The encore features rock and roll celeb guests including Sir Bob Geldof (Boomtown Rats), Dennis Greaves and Mark Feltham (Nine Below Zero) and guitarists and singer songwriters John Otway and Wreckless Eric. Last night saw Wilko’s son Simon Johnson, guitarist with punk blues band Eight Rounds Rapid, and the legendary Norman Watt-Roy (Ian Dury and the Blockheads, the Wilko Johnson band) joining the band and the improvement in musical quality was tangible.
Despite the issues Wilko: Love and Death and Rock and Roll is still a great evening of theatre that confronts us with the unflinching reality of our own mortality. Whilst enjoyably nostalgic for those of us around or involved in the pub rock scene, the quality of the script and acting elevate the piece into something much more than just a memory fest.
All photos by Nick Haeffner
Wilko
Leicester Square Theatre
6 Leicester Place
West End
London WC2H 7BX
From 3rd to 27th July
www.leicestersquaretheatre.com
020 7734 2222
Looking for more West End Theatre? Check our review of Evita the Musical
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