We Will Rock You

So you’ve seen the show based on Abba, you’re awaiting the rumoured show based around the songs of the Bee Gee’s, you’ve seen the Jersey Boys, the Rat Pack but you’ve not yet exhausted your old-songs-recycled-in-a-musical thirst just yet? Well then We Will Rock You is most definitely the show for you.

Based around, quite clearly, the music of Queen, this is a foot-stomping, falsetto-shaking romp through the back catalogue of Queen. Clearly some sort of narrative structure was needed to string the different hits of Queen together and Ben Elton went for: some point in the future, when globalisation has finally completed its mission, and what we are left with is a Ga Ga world (see what he did there?) where there is no originality and everyone just does exactly the same as everybody else. All musical instruments are banned in this new world and the authorities dictate what sort of music people can listen to. However resistance begins to grow and the musical centres around what happens as it does and rebellion begins.

Credit to Elton, this is a very intriguing plot for a show which could have just rested on its laurels of having a soundtrack of some of the greatest songs ever made, but its worked harder than most to include these in some sort of coherent and semi-plausible plot structure. Indeed, the show’s been selling out for 7 years now, so clearly it’s doing something right! If you do choose to go sit yourself down in the Dominion Theatre (or at least sit at first, you will most certainly be on your feet before long) then be warned that this show is a veritable epic lasting as it does around 3 hours, with 1 interval to replenish your energy supplies ready for more singing along in the second half.

If a story involving the Bohemians and their quest to find someone to uncover the great axe of a guitar God hidden deep underground seems to you an almost heretical insult to one of the greatest groups of all time, then go along anyway and treat this show for what it really is, a reminder of, as The Independent puts it, “Just how fabulous Queen were”. The musical also ensures that the genius of Mercury, May and the rest is being discovered by a new generation of young people. Go along, and be rocked.

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