Given five minutes and a rock orchestra, which David Bowie would you be? Jake Shears dashes and gyrates across the Festival Hall stage in a glittery jumpsuit to “Watch That Man”, every inch the glam-pop starman. Anna Calvi, the grand dame, expands into the austere Gallic elegance of “Lady Grinning Soul”. Battersea’s Tawiah finds the plastic soul of vaudevillian oompah classic “The Prettiest Star”. And Lynks – sashaying through the moral detritus of “Cracked Actor” in fashionista head-mask and a sci-fi outfit that could only be described as glam-gimp – sets out to encapsulate Bowie the alien art god.
It’s only the rock orchestra, really, that holds them back. This full performance of Bowie’s sixth album has been reinterpreted by the Nu Civilisation Orchestra for the Southbank’s Aladdin Sane: 50 Years anniversary season, and somewhat misses the point of the thing. Bowie himself undersold the record by calling it “Ziggy Stardust goes to America”. This portrait of madness, depravity and Stateside collapse certainly emerged from Ziggy’s US tour, and his breakthrough, other-worldly persona endured. But as the first album that Bowie produced as a bonafide glam superstar, its adoption of avant-garde and jazz touches, largely courtesy of pianist Mike Garson, have marked it out as a bold sign that artistic evolution mattered more to Bowie than any transient success.
To render the whole thing as West End musical cabaret, then, complete with dramatic orchestral climaxes and ubiquitous gospel trio, leaves the first half – delivered non-chronologically – feeling frustratingly flat. “Watch That Man” becomes dated, by-numbers boogie-woogie, and Tawiah works hard to lift “The Prettiest Star” out of a lumpen plod with her acrobatic soul vocals. “Panic in Detroit” is given a pleasing Afro-rock feel and some suitable riff work for a song about the 1967 Detroit riots, but it’s only in the second half – replete with the album’s biggest hitters – that the show finds real momentum.
Rearranged, this section acts as a kind of mini rock opera in its own right. R&B firecracker Roxanne Tataei turns “Aladdin Sane (1913-1938-197?)” into the night’s first real belter, introducing the titular character, a cracked actor prophesying impending war, inspired by Bowie’s schizophrenic brother Terry. Tawiah returns for the barnstorming doo-wop of “Drive-in Saturday”, hammering home the album’s seditious sci-fi themes on a song about post-apocalyptic society learning to have sex again by watching old porn videos. Right on cue, Shears blazes through The Stones’ “Let’s Spend the Night Together” in a classic Ziggy half-leotard, and Calvi provides the climactic drama, falling to the floor during a particularly Weimarian “Time”.
During the closing rock-outs of “The Jean Genie” and a bonus “Rebel Rebel”, though, Lynks steals the show by emerging in his own balaclava version of Bowie’s legendary Kansai Yamamoto record-leg jumpsuit, part authentic Bowie tribute, part stylish thumb of the nose at Sam Smith’s similarly wide-thighed fashion fail at the Brits. It’s a victory snatched from the jaws of pastiche; not so much a crash course as a confidence-building exercise for the ravers.
