WILKO
Southwark Playhouse Borough
★★★
“None of what follows would be remotely plausible without the sterling performance of Johnson Willis who wholly inhabits the fractious rebel”
Stilted Guitar Dalek, poet, philosopher and musical pioneer Wilko Johnson enjoys yet another resurgence in writer Jonathan Maitland’s affectionate stage biography.
The Dr Feelgood founder was famously diagnosed with terminal cancer in 2012 but remarkably lived another decade or so. At his farewell concert in Camden in 2013 he was so spritely for a dead man walking that a doctor friend suggested he might be a candidate for a life-saving op. And so it came about.
However, we meet the musician just after his initial diagnosis and find him in good spirits.
“I can live with it,” he says of his cancer. “I can be alive with it.”
The death sentence takes him back to the beginning, to his Canvey Island youth, abusive father, teenage love and musical escape.
None of what follows would be remotely plausible without the sterling performance of Johnson Willis who wholly inhabits the fractious rebel. His nasal intonation, coupled with his studied over pronunciation and stiff physicality bring to mind Kenneth Williams as a Thunderbirds puppet.
Director Dugald Bruce-Lockhart’s production takes us on a journey of Essex, drugs and rock’n’roll as Wilko discovers a way of adapting the blues to fit his version of England – all oil terminals, chip shops and clinches under the pier. Dr Feelgood produce a clipped and insistent interpretation of R&B that brings them chart success and paves the way for punk.
The cast, who previously provided cameos to illustrate Wilko’s fragmented origin story, comes together to form Dr Feelgood and everything makes sense, both for Wilko and the audience.
Georgina Field (bass), David John (drums), and Jon House (vocals and harmonica) are a tight unit. House’s Lee Brilleaux, in particular, brings his A-game to offer up a rug-burning explosion of dad rock.
In Maitland’s unbalanced re-telling, the play rushes past the Dr Feelgood heyday too early, dismissing the intriguing artistic spat between Wilko and Brilleaux in a few unhelpful lines. The reasons why Dr Feelgood went on to greater success without their destructive songwriter are never explored.
Afterwards, with Wilko drifting, the play seems to run out of momentum, and we are left – along with Wilko – mourning the passing of his sparky wife Irene (a lovely performance by Georgina Fairbanks) who stayed with him despite his numerous cruel infidelities.
Little wonder then that the production uses Wilko’s second lease of life and his Scrooge-like transformation to bring about a fantasy Dr Feelgood reunion gig which adds little dramatic coherence but gives the audience what they want when they need it most.
The Guardian once wrote that Wilko Johnson was “a 100-1 shot to be our Greatest Living Englishman”. We get glimpses of that cantankerous, selfish, charismatic and much-cherished artist, but this production is frustratingly incurious about the contradictions, aspiring to be kind rather than clinical. Feelgood by name…
WILKO
Southwark Playhouse Borough
Reviewed on 24th March 2025
by Giles Broadbent
Photography by Mark Sepple
Previously reviewed at this venue:
SON OF A BITCH | ★★★★ | February 2025
SCISSORHANDZ | ★★★ | January 2025
CANNED GOODS | ★★★ | January 2025
THE MASSIVE TRAGEDY OF MADAME BOVARY | ★★★ | December 2024
THE HAPPIEST MAN ON EARTH | ★★★★★ | November 2024
[TITLE OF SHOW] | ★★★ | November 2024
THE UNGODLY | ★★★ | October 2024
FOREVERLAND | ★★★★ | October 2024
JULIUS CAESAR | ★★★ | September 2024
DORIAN: THE MUSICAL | ★★½ | July 2024
THE BLEEDING TREE | ★★★★ | June 2024
FUN AT THE BEACH ROMP-BOMP-A-LOMP!! | ★★★ | May 2024
