REVIEW: The Rock ‘n’ Roll Alien at Adelphi Theatre 27 May 2025

'sadly lacking’ ★★

All my nightmares came today and it looks as though they’re here to stay. For any die-hard Bowie fans out there that feel bad about missing it, don’t worry about a thing, you might be better off.

After spending week after week for years watching all sorts of productions in the fringe theatres of London, the pop-ups, street theatres and pubs you come to realize that the range of ability out there is vast. So what, what do you expect? That’s going to be the case in any activity in life at the grass roots level. Your average Sunday league football team I’m sure has the odd budding Pele or Maradona. As well as the flabby leftovers of an overenthusiastic youth that has spent a few too many nights down the local with the lads and is just dragged along to make up the numbers. So too with theatre; some pub theatre productions are outstanding and some of the actors I’ll guarantee are destined for greater things. In fact the general standard is pretty high.

So when it comes to my not-too-frequent visit to the west end I expect something a little bit special; not least because these performers are getting paid and paid incredibly well in comparison to the average entertainer. Expectations therefore were high and having found over the years that my appreciation for David Bowie has grown it was with great anticipation that I arrived at the Adelphi.

Expectations though, can be a cruel thing. 

How do you manage to get the words wrong on the first song? And not just any song but the iconic song Space Oddity. Then the melody was not quite right in Pretty Things. Could the singer not sing it properly or did they think that they could do a better job than David Bowie? But it’s a cover version so it doesn’t have to be exact does it? And maybe I’m being a bit over critical, I have to remind myself – this is not David Bowie.

But, this show has been described as a tribute act and “hailed as the BEST tribute show ever!” by some but if we are going down that road then “A Whole Lot of Lovies” nailing every note of Jimmy Page’s guitar solos and sounding for all the world like Led Zeppelin for every second of their set is an incredibly hard act to top and I sincerely suggest that this effort came nowhere near that. Ziggy Stardust didn’t even come close to Bauhaus’s version never mind David Bowie’s. So to call this the “BEST” must surely have been because their performance on another night to other ears must have been what made the difference. Tonight wasn’t the “BEST” of anything. But that’s okay, it’s their own interpretation of the songs and everyone has an off day. Don’t they?

A quick look round early on led me to believe that I was not alone in my sentiments. The meager smattering of applause after the first few numbers said it all. The general lack of atmosphere in the audience was equaled only by the dullness of enthusiasm onstage.

Did these people not know how to perform? Because we weren’t getting performances of the songs, only a bunch of zombies faking their way through a list of stuff they had to do.

I resigned myself to looking at the excellent back projections which were out of this world. Amazing images of all sorts of colour, shape, style and with the massive variety of costume and choreography I began to think it would all be better off without the music. Just letting the dancers get on with it and do their thing might have been a better idea.

I love being proved wrong though.

Like a bolt from the blue “Wild as the Wind” arrived as the last number of the first half but unfortunately came too late for some and there were nine or ten or so empty seats that were not filled after the interval. And that was just from what I could see from where I was sitting. No doubt there were plenty of others who had had enough by then.

Maybe if the manager gave his team a roasting in the changing room at half time then the goal they scored before the break could inspire the team to pull off a winning performance?

No.

Unfortunately it wasn’t to be.

Having known my fare share of sound engineers over the years I have become aware of a running feud between the live gig and studio camps and who is best at doing what. This has spilled over into criticism of theatre whenever I drag any of them along to a show or whenever the subject comes up. Had the guy doing the sound ever worked for a live band? Did they do a sound check before they started? Could the people on stage hear each other properly? All these questions came to mind. Then Scary Monsters started without the keyboards or at least they were too low because after the first verse they were obviously turned up. Whoops!

Then there were the several saxophone solos you couldn’t hear? The guitar, on the other hand was brilliant and so was the guitarist. In fact the whole band might have been if you could pick out who was playing what through the muddy mess that was coming out of the speakers for most of the set. A good enough excuse for the singer, and I won’t say which one, being flat on more than one occasion.

But it all looked good except where was the clown on “Ashes to Ashes”? Okay so I think David Bowie played that part in the video and he’s not here any more so. . . .

Am I being a bit too critical? I just can’t help it; these were the things that stood out the most but remember – this is not David Bowie.

Which brings us to “Absolute Beginners”; at least this wasn’t as bad as the film. Sorry, can’t say anything better about it.

The weird costumes and their novelty and variety held the show together with the dancers and just when it occurred to me again that the music might be getting in the way – BANG! “I’m Afraid of Americans” smacked me in the face. So this was their plan. Do a crap set and finish really well and hopefully everyone will go home thinking only of the last thing they heard. It’s true the last three numbers were on a totally different planet compared to the rest but were all a bit too little too late.

As we all stood to the anthem “Heroes”, maybe because the people at the front did so, so we had to because we couldn’t see otherwise, or more likely because we really all loved David Bowie and his music, artistry, humour, originality and genius, I saw more than one person bring a tissue to their eye. This was obviously a moving night for some and I completely understand why.

Which brings me to conclude that every show no matter how lowly in budget, how amateur in status or how naive in performance needs one thing to make it work. One thing that I have been seeing week in week out year after year in all those anonymous little theatres and that is commitment. Commitment to learn and concentrate while performing so as not make mistakes, commitment to put in effort and so carry an audience along with your enthusiasm, and commitment to be brave and have courage and do your best under all and whatever adverse circumstance get in your way. The thing this show was sadly lacking.

Choreographer Sophie Quay     Costume director Sadie Yukon

Creative director and producer Simon Gwilliam