Transferring to the West End from the Old Vic, Just For One Day: The Live Aid Musical offers nostalgia about the events leading up to 13 July 1985, and also as message to ‘go out there and do something’.
A memory stirs. I was just on the cusp of becoming a teenager then, and both Band Aid (the Christmas charity single that takes up most of act 1) and Live Aid (the global concert) were ‘a big deal’.
We knew little about Ethiopia and its struggles to feed people under the strain of military rule. We didn’t have 24-hour news on the spot live reporting or the Internet.
So when Bob Geldof (Craige Els), frontman of the Boomtown Rats, sat down to watch a report on starving children, he did it alongside everyone else. For him, something needed to be done.
The seed was his wife Paula asking every guest in their house for a small donation. From small seeds grow big ideas and so by cajoling every big name in the business in the UK and USA, a global fundraiser is created.
John O’Farrell’s book is sweary, earnest, and a bit superficial, but it would be churlish not to be swept along by the idea that music and entertainment can bring people together for a common goal.
Suzanne (Melissa Jacques) is seeing her daughter Jemma (Fayth Ifil) off to university, and the talk turns to Live Aid, 40 years earlier (‘history’, according to the teen).
What was it, and what did it do? This is a musical, and so some 30+ songs are used to tell the story, from “Message in a Bottle” and “Stop Your Sobbing” to “Why Can’t We Live Together” and a couple of gems in “Blowin’ in the Wind” and a truncated “Bohemian Rhapsody”.
Director Luke Sheppard has opted to set this on a set (by Soutra Gilmour) of lights, stage platform for the band, and grainy video (by Andrzej Goulding). Ebony Molina’s choreography captures 80s moves with a modern twist. The sound by Gareth Owen is first-class.
The cast rarely pauses for breath, with Els and Jacques at its core. Hit after hit keep us focused on the music (with helpful signposts on the artist name for those not there in the 80s), while carefully constructed scenes offer insight.
A comedic Mrs Thatcher (Julie Atherton) feels a bit awkward, but a strutting Harvey Goldsmith (a wonderful Tim Mahendran) works well. There are some brilliant performances from Kelly Agbowu, Freddie Love, Hope Kenna (as earnest young Suzanne).
Amusingly, George Ure (no relation) plays Midge Ure (including a fab “Vienna”), while the cast as chorus add new fire to old classics like “My Generation”, “Heroes”, “Drive” and “Let It Be”.
I also need to cheer for the band, with musical director Patrick Hurley alongside Rachel Murphy’s keys, two cracking guitarists in Matt Isaac and Kobi Pham, and Liam Waugh’s powerhouse drumming.
Two lasting images. Bob Geldof pausing “I Don’t Like Mondays” on the Wembley stage at the line ‘and the lesson today is how to die’ (a memory of sitting in front of our old TV with chills). Bob Geldof in a spotlight, having seen the dying children of Ethiopia for himself, and telling us about ‘a silent cry of agony’ from a toddler put in his arms.
Live Aid was 40 years ago, but its influence endures, with Geldof, Goldsmith, Ure, John Kennedy, Michael Grade, and Chris Morrison continuing the work of the Band Aid Charitable Trust.
This very musical, the real Geldof told us in a lengthy curtain call speech, is already raising money close to a million pounds for those who need it. Governments drag their feet; we should not.
This is a show that is there to do good, and with a diverse cast (race, gender) it highlights the universal power of a movement – or, in young Suzanne’s romance with geeky Tim, the power of young passion for everything around you.
4 stars from me.
Just For One Day: The Live Aid Musical continues at the Shaftesbury Theatre – details here.
Image credit: Evan Zimmerman