WILKO – LOVE AND DEATH AND ROCK AND ROLL is, fittingly, difficult to categorise. Part biography, part gig and part reflection on a life already lived, Jonathan Maitland’s play takes the extraordinary story of Dr Feelgood guitarist Wilko Johnson and turns it into something remarkably life-affirming.

Rather than adopting the conventional distance of a biographical drama, WILKO places Wilko himself at the centre of his own story. He becomes an omniscient narrator of sorts, dipping in and out of his memories, sometimes addressing the audience directly and at others appearing entirely absorbed within the past unfolding around him; the effect is wonderfully intimate. Rather than simply watching the events of Wilko Johnson’s life chronologically reconstructed, we are watching somebody look back upon them.

It is a choice which gives Maitland’s writing a particularly poignant edge. There is always the sense that what we are seeing has already been lived and lost, lending even the production’s happiest moments a faint tinge of nostalgia. Yet WILKO never becomes preoccupied with death. Instead, its retrospective structure seems to heighten the value of everything that came before it: the music, the relationships, the mistakes, the grief and the sheer strangeness of a life which could never have been planned in advance.

Director Dugald Bruce-Lockhart handles this structure marvellously. Scenes of anger, love, loss and despair are allowed their necessary weight without overwhelming the production’s sense of vitality. Particularly effective is the ease with which the action slips between memory and narration. Wilko can inhabit a moment before suddenly stepping outside it, turning towards us and puncturing the theatrical boundary between his recollection and our experience of it.

This accessibility is especially important for those who, like myself, arrive with minimal knowledge of Wilko Johnson, Dr Feelgood or the musical world surrounding them. There is a considerable amount of history to communicate, but the contextualisation never becomes burdensome. Instead, Maitland and Bruce-Lockhart provide just enough grounding to allow newcomers to understand the significance of what they are watching without sacrificing the momentum of the story. You do not need to know Wilko Johnson to become invested in him.

At the centre of it all is Johnson Willis, who gives an exceptional performance as Wilko. He captures the contradictions of the character with a cutting precision: reflective one moment, emotionally volatile the next, before softening completely in scenes with his childhood sweetheart, Irene. Crucially, Willis never allows the iconography surrounding Wilko Johnson to overwhelm the person underneath it. His is a rounded, incredibly human performance, making the audience feel as though they have come to know something of the man rather than simply the musician.

Lara Lemon is equally wonderful as Irene Knight, injecting the production with an infectious liveliness. There is a gorgeous buoyancy to her performance, but never at the expense of emotional depth. Her relationship with Wilko forms much of the play’s heart, and Lemon navigates its changes with tremendous grace, ensuring Irene feels like a vivid presence within the story rather than merely a figure within somebody else’s memories.

Jon House also gives a memorable turn as Lee Brilleaux, leading the Dr Feelgood contingent with some genuinely hair-raising vocals. It is here that WILKO most gleefully embraces its rock-and-roll identity. The songs do not quite make this a musical – nor does the production appear particularly interested in becoming one – but they are far more than incidental accompaniment. Music is part of the language through which Wilko’s life is remembered.

This is amplified by an outstanding lighting design, which does a remarkable amount of the production’s visual storytelling. With little reliance on conventional set changes, light instead marks shifts in time, place and memory. Spotlights isolate individual recollections before allowing them to fade back into the wider story, while a wash of blue conjures the sea with beautiful simplicity. At other moments, lights blaze directly out towards the auditorium, momentarily transforming the theatre into a rock concert and collapsing the distinction between watching Dr Feelgood perform and feeling as though we are actually there.

This is where WILKO succeeds most ferociously. It understands that telling the story of a life is not simply a matter of reproducing what happened. It is about recreating how those moments felt: how memory distorts, preserves and gives significance to experiences once they have passed.

The result is a fantastic night at the theatre. WILKO – LOVE AND DEATH AND ROCK AND ROLL is reflective and introspective enough to be genuinely moving, without ever allowing sadness to put a damper on your September. Its subject may be a very particular man from a very particular musical world, but its preoccupations – love, mortality, memory and what makes a life worth remembering – are wonderfully universal.

Whether you have loved Wilko Johnson for decades or, like me, walked into the theatre knowing almost nothing about him, there is plenty here to adore

Image credit – Nick Haeffner