This thoroughly entertaining rock musical with its dramatic score and fascinating storyline, has been thrilling theatre goers for years and is just as relevant today as when it was first produced.
Whilst dealing with some dark themes, there are moments of hope and triumph so audiences are uplifted as well as moved. At its heart, the story celebrates family, forgiveness, resilience, and ultimately the extraordinary power of healing.
The story of Tommy is timeless. The artistic vision of our production is a simplicity of set, costumes and props with the use of inspirational projection and lighting to complement and enhance the piece, with an emphasis on the cast to bring the characters to life through the wonderful music. This production of Tommy exists outside the bounds of a specific time or place.
Our production has a cast of 18 performers and a live band and promises to be a one-of a-kind theatrical event.
Warning: This show contains lighting and moving images which may affect people with epilepsy or other photo-sensitive conditions
Plot Summary
An unknown place and time. It could be the past, the present or the future.
Act 1: Captain Walker is captured during the war, and declared missing in action, leaving his wife to raise their son, Tommy. Walker unexpectedly returns years later, finds his wife with another man and kills him. This is witnessed by four-year old Tommy who experiences a psychosomatic shutdown. Tommy is unable to hear, see or speak. As he grows, he is constantly tested by doctors and specialists and endures abuse from relatives like Uncle Ernie and Cousin Kevin and strange healers like the Acid Queen. Tommy finds solace in pinball for which he has an uncanny talent. Tommy becomes a local sensation, staring eternally into his own reflection, sensing a ‘Mirror Boy’ version of his potential self.
Act 2: Tommy reaches adulthood as a world-famous pinball champion. Racked by guilt and desperate for a cure, Mrs Walker smashes Tommy's mirror in a fit of rage and Tommy’s senses miraculously return. He is instantly hailed as a messianic ‘Pinball Wizard’. He gains a massive following, including super fan Sally Simpson, who is injured while trying to reach him on stage. Seeing her pain and the greed of those around him, Tommy rejects his celebrity status and the commercialism involved. Returning to his family, he forgives his parents and teaches his followers that the power to heal and experience the world lies within themselves, not in a leader.
EDI Assessment
In line with our EDI policy, we undertake an EDI impact assessment of all our artistic programming. The Who's 'Tommy' tells the story of the turbulent life of Tommy Walker, who witnesses a traumatic event in his childhood and consequently suffers loss of hearing, sight and speech. The play deals with some dark themes such as bullying and abuse. It involves a large ensemble cast with significant flexibility over playing ages, gender identity, and complete neutrality on race/ethnicity. For the purposes of the narrative, certain characters will be specified as needing to be female- or male- presenting.
The Who’s Tommy, written by Des McAnuff and Pete Townshend and directed by Debra Relton Elves, is the first full scale production in Earlsdon’s newly refurbished Criterion Theatre. The bar and entrance have been opened up and expanded to make a spacious and fresh welcoming area. Based on The Who’s rock opera album, Tommy, this stage version tells the story of Tommy who becomes blind, deaf and dumb following a traumatic incident in his young childhood. Ostracised by his peers and mystifying doctors, he later discovers a talent for playing pinball machines.
The story begins with an impressive opening sequence showing, entirely by actions, the story of Tommy’s parents wartime military meeting and marriage. The action is added to at this, and other points throughout the show, by five strategically placed screens. In this opening section we watch as actors don parachutes and seemingly jump out of a plane, followed by images on screen of parachute-bornepeople floating down to earth. The story is told entirely through song which can make it occasionally hard to follow if you don’t catch all the lyrics but makes for a toe-tapping time, particularly if you are a fan of The Who.
The ensemble switch flexibly and seamlessly between countless roles, from military personnel, through doctors, midwives, cousins and teenagers to police and bodyguards. They fill out the show, singing, dancing and featuring in character roles along the way, such as Anne-marie Greene’s fantastic solo as the shady Gypsy, offering to cure Tommy by dubious means, and with an impressive display of tumbling gymnastics from Ella Moorley.
Throughout the dark themes surrounding him, such as neglect, abuse, bullying and murder, Tommy shines bright and different from his peers in an all white outfit. This also strengthens the links between the actors playing younger and older Tommy. Each narrates the other actor’s scenes when they are mute and sometimes they respond together, reflecting each other, as if in a mirror. On the night we watched it young Tommy was played poignantly by Rosalie Armstrong, isolated from the surrounding world. Rosalie alternates the role with Izzie Lewis, with older Tommy played by Samuel Koppel. There are also heartfelt, talented performances from Sue Randall and Nathan Holden as Tommy’s parents, struggling in difficult circumstances, including some powerful duets.
An offstage live band adds a great momentum to the show, keeping a lively upbeat feel, despite the difficult and complex issues it touches on, in what is ultimately a rock musical that celebrates family, forgiveness, resilience, and the extraordinary power of healing.
Alison Manning, Earlsdon Echo
There was an excited and busy hubbub in the newly renovated foyer of the Criterion Theatre as show goers explored the renovation changes. There’s now more space and light in the foyer area and many had taken the opportunity to order a pre-theatre drink from the bar.
Tommy’s the first big show in the theatre post renovation and there was some small confusion when it was declared that tickets had been replaced by a digital guest list. All worked smoothly though and the show opened to a packed house.
All I knew about ‘Tommy’ before seeing this production was that somewhere there’s the famous song ‘Pinball Wizard’ in it. As someone who didn’t know the story, I found parts of act one to be unexpectedly dark. There’s war, loss and abuse. The minimal digital set helped guide me through the plot though and it was clear by the time of a dramatic fight between Tommy’s father and his wife’s lover, that this was the pivotal scene where four-year-old Tommy shuts down, traumatised by what he’s seen and heard.
The 18 performers move seamlessly from scene to scene, switching characters but all the time driving the story forward. This is a rock musical and the amazing live band, who sadly you don’t get to see, provide high energy mirrored by enthusiastic singing from the cast. It’s hard to believe these are amateur performers and the quality of the singing is in the main excellent, with men deftly hitting incredibly high notes. The band features Rob Parish (keyboard), Jon Heywood and Nick Goodwin (bass guitar), Simon Belcher (drums), Nick Jones (lead guitar).
There’s a couple of stand-out songs. Anne-marie Greene terrifies and entertains as the Gypsy who promises the deaf dumb and blind kid Tommy a miracle cure. A duet between Captain Walker, played by Nathan Holden, and Mrs Walker, played by Sue Randall is powerful and impassioned.
There’s great performances on stage too, The role of NarratorTommy is played by Samuel Koppel with unexpected cartwheels from Ella Moorley. But the stand-out performance of the night has to go to 12-year-old Rosalie Armstrong who plays young Tommy, locked in a world of his own dreams. The part of young Tommy is shared also with Izzie Lewis. In this opening night's performance, the white-clad Rosalie remains unmoved and unimpassioned on stage while all around her is a riot of noise and movement. This is only surpassed by her singing ability.
In the end the story is one of hope, as Tommy becomes a worldwide Pinball playing champion, followed and adored by the very people who taunted him in his younger years.
Hilary Hopker, Elementary Whatson