Wilko: Love And Death And Rock ’n’ Roll - a brand-new play with live music that tells the miraculous tale of how Dr Feelgood guitarist Wilko Johnson survived a terminal-cancer diagnosis - comes to Coventry this month. Here, its writer, Jonathan Maitland, explains why the incredible story will appeal to a wide audience, not just fans of the legendary Essex rock band...

“It is one of the greatest, if not the greatest rock & roll story ever told. If it wasn’t real and you invented it, people wouldn’t believe you.”

Playwright and former journalist Jonathan Maitland is animatedly effusive about the inspiration for his latest play: the truly extraordinary life of Wilko Johnson - guitarist and founder member of legendary 1970s pub rock band (and punk trailblazers) Dr Feelgood.

In 2012, the iconic and bullet-headed star - who also had a recurring role in TV’s Game Of Thrones - was given the devastating news that he had inoperable cancer and less than 12 months to live. The notoriously grumpy rocker refused all treatment, deciding instead to spend time with friends, make a final album (with The Who’s Roger Daltrey) and play a farewell concert tour. It proved an unlikely new lease of life for the perennial curmudgeon, according to Maitland.

“When he got the diagnosis, he was on the verge of giving up rock & roll - he’d had enough of travelling to gigs and playing to audiences of five, 10, 15 people,” he says, noting that the diagnosis not only rejuvenated Wilko but changed his typically antagonistic, downbeat demeanour.

“The way he dealt with his illness and the way he just said [adopts note-for-note Canvey Island accent] ‘I’m not taking any chemotherapy. I’m gonna die, and it’s made me a new person - I love life. It’s incredible. I’m tingling all over.’ It was amazing. There’s footage on YouTube of him saying, ‘I’m alive. I feel alive.’ He wasn’t faking it.”

And then a miracle happened. At his farewell gig at KOKO in Camden, which included a poignant singalong encore of Bye Bye Johnny - Wilko’s real name was John Wilkinson - a cancer doctor and amateur photographer called Charlie Chan (yes, really) told Wilko ‘for a man who’s about to die, you look surprisingly well’ and convinced him to get a second opinion.

Charlie introduced him to a French surgeon called Emmanuel Huguet, who determined he had a cancerous tumour but not actual cancer. Without treatment it would kill him, but it could be removed… which it was, during a risky 12-hour operation at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge. Wilko went on to live another decade, eventually passing away in 2022, aged 75.

The extraordinary tale of his (mis)diagnosis, acceptance of his fate, new-found love of life and miraculous survival are now the subject of Maitland’s latest play, Wilko: Love And Death And Rock ’n’ Roll.

The writer has penned a number of dramas based on real-life people and events - subjects have included Margaret Thatcher, Lady Diana, Boris Johnson and Jimmy Savile - but this one evidently means more, given his lifelong admiration of the subject.

“I’ve always been a massive, massive fan of Wilko, primarily because of the music he made with Dr Feelgood, but also afterwards because he was so exciting and so funny and so mesmeric and brilliant. You listen to the music and it just sends 50,000 volts of electricity through you.”

Not that he ever intended to write a play about the man, he admits: “There was always something extraordinary about him, but I didn’t think there was a play there. You can’t just write a play about somebody you like. I love the Electric Light Orchestra, and Jeff Lynne is wonderful, but he’s probably the most boring man in the world.”

That said, Jonathan had been trying and failing to develop a play involving a musician who faked his own death in order to become famous.

“The best thing you can do for your career if you’re a rock star is die like all those kids who died at 27 - Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Kurt Cobain… the ‘Stupid Club’, as Cobain’s mother called them. I didn’t get very far with it, but I thought, what a great story; this rock star goes missing, he goes to number one, and then they find out he’s still alive. When Wilko got ill, I thought, my god, it’s happened for real - these two things have come together! One of, if not my favourite rock star, has done my idea for real - not pretending but basically being given 12 months to live! In the process, he does a sell-out tour, his album goes to number one and he becomes a national treasure all over again.”

Jonathan instantly got to work bringing the two threads together, even contacting Wilko to get his blessing, something the English Literature graduate and self-professed ‘man of letters’ was delighted about.

“He understood theatre and loved it. He used to take his son, Simon, to see Shakespeare, so I think he was quite honoured that somebody who could write plays wanted to make a play about him. I said ‘I’m going to have to take a bit of a dramatic licence’ and he said [adopts accent again] ‘Well, it’s a play, right, just f*cking make it up.’”

Once he had a first draft, Jonathan visited Wilko to get his opinion and instantly found himself being corrected on an all-important element. Having been read a stage direction saying ‘Wilco sniffs a line of coke’, the guitarist jumped in: ‘No, no, stop - it’s not coke, it’s speed.’

“He then tells this story about how he and Lemmy from Motorhead used to stay awake all week on speed,” recalls Jonathan. “He said day three was the best ‘because it’s like someone’s taken off the top of your head, poured in Rice Crispies and then milk on top - snap, crackle and pop inside your brain’.

“It’s such a great line - I put it in the play and it gets a massive laugh every night.”

There are plenty of laughs in the show, of course, but there’s angst, tragedy and heartbreak too. Wilko was effectively kicked out of his own band (they had their biggest chart hits less than a year later, as singer Lee Brilleaux was quick to remind him), his wife died of cancer in 2004, and sadly he never got to see the play performed before he passed.

It all adds up to a drama that Jonathan believes has a life way beyond lovers of Dr Feelgood - something demonstrated by the show’s sold-out runs in London: “The reason the play’s been a success and has made people laugh and cry is because it’s imbued with Wilko’s spirit and his words. A lot of the best gags in it are his gags - I just fashioned a narrative and scenes around it.”

The mixture of drama, quotes from the man himself and live music - including a number of Dr Feelgood hits as well as cover versions such as Route 66 - make for a suitably emotional but ultimately uplifting journey of redemption that also draws comparisons with a certain well-known festive tale.

“It’s a real-life Christmas Carol but with cancer and guitars,” laughs Jonathan. “[Wilko] is Scrooge, gets cancer, sees his death, sees his demons and thinks ‘Oh my God, I’ve been appalling.’ After his death sentence, he became a better person. Or, as he put it: ‘less of an arsehole’.”

Wilko: Love And Death And Rock ’n’ Roll shows at the Belgrade Theatre, Coventry, from Monday 7 to Wednesday 9 September; Malvern Theatres, Tuesday 22 to Saturday 26 September; and Theatre Severn, Shrewsbury, Thursday 22 to Saturday 24 October

By Steve Adams