John Waters' vocal delivery lacks Lennon's raw purity but still packs an emotional punch.
Interwoven songs and interview snippets lay bare legend’s soul.
With a finely woven blend of song and interview fragments Australian John Waters takes us inside Lennon's glass onion, showcasing the brilliance of his songs and his genius for provocative conversation.
There are insightful snippets on all the familiar Lennon touchstones: the tough childhood in Liverpool, the meteoric rise to
fame, psychedelic drugs, the Maharishi, Yoko Ono, the rancorous Beatles bust-up and the tragic assassination.
What sets the show apart is the way it reveals the tormented emotional life of a musical legend. Waters inhabits his character so thoroughly it's not difficult to imagine Lennon himself is addressing the audience with remarkable candour, down-to-earth humour and refusal to indulge anything that smacks of pomposity or pretense.
The stripped-down versions of the songs with lovely piano accompaniment from Bill Risby emphasise the melodic quality of Lennon-McCartney compositions and though Waters cannot match the extraordinary purity of Lennon's voice his delivery carries a powerful emotional punch.
