Late Richard Burton Returns to Stage???

Ol’ Blue Eyes isn’t the only artist being brought back to the stage through computer wizardry. A UK arena tour of War of the Worlds, a concert version of the 1978 album inspired by the novel by HG Wells, features a holographic image of actor Richard Burton, who died 22 years ago. Burton’s head will appear above the stage to narrate the story of alien invasion. Jeff Wayne has adapted the stage version from his concept album of the same title, which featured Burton as the journalist-narrator and sold 13 million copies with 300 consecutive weeks in the album chart. Wayne has described the show as “somewhere between a rock concert and very large-scale theatre”. The holographic head was designed from photographs of Burton when he was in his thirties, and animated by footage of look-alike actor Aaron Robson through technology which melded the two images together. War of the Worlds comes to the Royal Albert Hall and Wembley Arena this month as part of its tour.

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