Ziggy Stardust was the 1st album I ever bought back in 1972 and we saw David Bowie at Wembley in 1985 in Live Aid and 1987 in the Glass Spider Tour and in 2002 at Old Trafford cricket ground in the pouring rain. I also remember clearly the moment I heard he had died while driving to work five years ago this week, so having missed his final work Lazarus at the pop-up theatre at Kings Cross in 2016, I was excited to catch one of the limited scheduled streams on the anniversary of his death of the archived recording of the show. The 1976 film The Man who fell to earth also had left a strong memory from seeing it at the cinema at the time as one of the oddest films we have seen but Bowie's charismatic bizarre creation of Newton left its mark. Lazarus is presented as a sequel to the film with Newton still a lost alien marooned on earth so you have to expect that it would feel odd.
Set in his apartment in a pale brown wash with large windows through which the nine-piece band could be seen, the design by Jan Versweyveld is a curious creation, as if it is filmed inside a cardboard box. However this bland background provides a screen on which projections overspill from the large LED screen centre stage and from behind which characters emerge as if stepping out of the TV. It is clear that much of what we are watching is in his head fuelled by gin and on the verge of madness from his sense of isolation on earth but the result is at times bizarre and confusing. My sense is that the intense rock music and visually intriguing imagery would have worked better in a live venue than on a streamed small screen which flattens and deadens the experience.
