Wilko: Love and Death and Rock ‘n’ Roll – Leicester Square Theatre

Georgina Fairbanks and Johnson Willis in Wilko at the Leicester Square Theatre, London. Picture: Nick Haeffner

Wilko: Love and Death and Rock ‘n’ Roll continues at the Leicester Square Theatre, London until 27 July 2025.

Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩

The term ‘wild man of rock’ is probably among the most overused and hackneyed description of numerous maverick musicians down the decades, but when applied to Wilko Johnson (born John Andrew), famed founder of Canvey Island rockers, Dr Feelgood, it doesn’t sound too wide of the mark.

Always an acquired musical taste, they were once described as the best pub band ever, a description that, depending on his mood, Johnson probably either loved or took grave exception to. You can only sit back and marvel here at the truly compelling performance of Johnson Willis in the lead role, playing the very personification of a talented, complex and tortured soul but, to many, an iconic guitarist and performer.

Songs like ‘Milk and Alcohol’ and ‘She Does it Right’ were bare-boned, aggressive and uncompromising. Johnson made no secret of his contempt for what he saw as the overblown pomposity of contemporary prog rock bands such as King Crimson and Genesis. He was often asked if he paved the way for punk rock, his standard, aggrieved riposte usually being: “No, we fu**ing invented it!”

This Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch production of Wilko, in association with the Cahoots Theatre Company, Jetty Productions and Canvey Rock Productions, comes to the West End via Hornchurch and, more recently, the Southwark Playhouse, the writer being Jonathan Maitland and director, Dugald Bruce-Lockhart.

As intriguing as his simultaneously impressive and tragic life story is, most of the audience had clearly come just to revel in some wonderfully nostalgic rock ‘n’ roll. A shame then that a disappointingly sparse Saturday night audience at the Leicester Square Theatre struggled to create much atmosphere until the encore, when the cast was joined by Sid Griffin (The Long Ryders) – just one of a string of very special guests lined up for this run.

What they missed was a down and dirty production, finely honed after its previous runs and featuring some outstanding musicianship, notably from Jon House as Feelgood frontman Lee Brilleaux, quite brilliant on the harmonica, aka ‘gob iron’.

Johnson never needed a harmonica to ‘gob off’, was never short of an opinion, didn’t suffer fools gladly and if you underestimated him, you clearly did so at your peril. Highly literate, highly educated and wordly-wise, as portrayed wonderfully here by Willis, he was prone to moments of poetic pondering and beguiling philosophical escapism, his later life being shattered by cancer, losing childhood sweetheart and wife Irene Knight (Georgina Fairbanks) to the disease in 2004 and also Brilleaux too.

Diagnosed himself with inoperable cancer in 2012, given just a year to live, but determined to live life to the full, he then recorded a hugely popular album with The Who’s Roger Daltrey and even embarked on a sold-out final farewell tour. Then, call it a combination of divine musical and medical intervention, he was declared cancer free after an initial gruelling operation and went on to live until 2022, even starring in Game of Thrones. Doctors were baffled, audiences delighted, and he even got a Southend train named after him posthumously – not bad for a guy from Canvey Island.

Like Ian Dury, his eccentric and very British legacy will burn bright for a good while yet – this raucous and touching tribute with its excellent cast will absolutely ensure that. Given their undeniably unique talents, neither, as Dury sang, was ever going to be just a ticket collector at Fulham Broadway station.

Derek Smith