Wilko – Queen’s Theatre, Hornchurch

Writer: Jonathan Maitland

Director: Dugald Bruce-Lockhart

In a charcoal black suit and a shining bald head, Johnson Willis as Wilko Johnson stands centre stage with an operating theatre light surrounding him like a halo. He tells the extraordinary story of John Wilkinson, Essex boy, guitarist extraordinaire and songwriter for Dr. Feelgood who changed the name John Wilkinson to Wilko Johnson due to an overabundance of Johns in the ban. Also a poet and, philosopher, he deals with a terminal diagnosis of pancreatic cancer and sets his sights on living his last six to eight months to the full. And that notwithstanding a life that had been pretty eventful up to then.

Johnson Willis is very ably supported by four other actors, but it is Johnson Willis’s show, and he is magnificent. From his swagger and his nasal Essex accent to his love of astronomy (not astrology, astrology is rubbish in the view of W. Johnson) and poetry, slant rhymes, Shakespeare, Wordsworth and zen; This is the complicated whole of Wilko Johnson and his journey from Canvey Island to Southend via Saturn.

Jonathan Maitland tells the story of a difficult and destructive man who was full of love, a devoted husband who almost wrecked his marriage by sleeping around, the architect of a band that pretty much invented punk, who wrote some of the band’s enduring songs but left them in a snit moments before they became financially successful. He was a world traveller who never moved away from the Thames Estuary, because he thought oil refineries and container ships were beautiful. It is a very good story, and it is told very well, mostly directly to the audience but with telling dialogue and very competent musical interludes. It isn’t a jukebox musical, it’s a play. With music. Wilko says that, and there’s no arguing with Wilko.

The set is made up of hospital screens, the lighting is unremarkable, the most evident props are a shadowy drum kit upstage, a bass guitar and amp stage left, an amp and a red and black Telecaster stage right, and an awful lot of space for Johnson Willis to fill. Fill it he does, in a remarkable reenactment of the prowling presence of the play’s subject.

The four actors who share the stage present a host of minor characters but save their powder for the moments when they bring Dr. Feelgood on stage. Jon House is less menacing than lead singer Lee Brilleaux (named after a scouring pad by way of New Orleans) but plays a mean harp and has Brilleaux’s signature moves down pat. Georgina Field and David John make up the Feelgood backline and do a very creditable job. The stand-out performance, though, is Georgina Fairbanks, playing Wilko’s wife and muse and Essex Queen Irene. She is powerful and relatable and gives as good as she gets in the face of Wilko’s infidelity, passion, and crushing remorse. Everything gives place, however, to Johnson Willis’ acting and Jonathan Maitland’s loving but not uncritical script.

Runs until 24 February 2024