War of the Worlds, the Musical

This was the first installment of The Shows Must Go On that I caught since the fall 2020 series started. War of the Worlds, the Musical looked interesting. In my head, they took the radio play by Orson Welles and wrote music and songs to add to the story. As the YouTube video started, the camera panned over the stage showing an orchestra and what looked like a single chair by a microphone, which almost confirmed my prediction. As the production began, I learned that was the conductor's stand, and from the costumes I realiezed, that we had gone back in time further than Welles' 1938 broadcast. We went back to 1898, for H.G. Wells' original story. Then the music started and we were flung forward nearly 100 years into the 1980s (Late 70s, really). Liam Neeson, who played the journalist, appeared as a hologram and there was a video screen showing creepy, glistening Martian creatures, coming to invade earth. Heat rays danced and shot flames while choreographed to synth rhythms and guitar solos.

Here is a description from Wikipedia: 

In 1978, a best selling musical album of the story [War of the Worlds] was produced by Jeff Wayne, with the voices of Richard Burton and David Essex. Two later, somewhat different live concert musical versions based on the original album have since been mounted by Wayne and toured throughout the UK. Both versions of this stage production utilised narration, lavish projected computer graphics, and a large Martian fighting machine on stage.

For this, if not all musicals, if you are not enjoying the music, you will not enjoy the production. I think I could have gotten through the gooey, oily cheesiness of this production, but the music was unbearable, and there were long stretches of just the music with the video screen and no acting or actors to distract me. A lot of folks will disagree with me, because according to Wikipedia, it is one of the bestselling studio albums in the UK. I gave up about 40 minutes into this video, when I realized I had made a game out of finding the one visible person of color on stage every time the camera moved. She was a violinist with an afro and her face was blocked by the conductor. I was hoping Esperanza Spaulding had snuck into the pit.
This was not my thing at all. I won't even rate it.