(seen at the afternoon performance on 15th June 2023)
“We Will Rock You” comes with two legends. The first is the storyline of a mysterious “axe” which will bring music back to I-Planet (formerly Earth) where Globalsoft Corporation has banned any music they have not produced themselves. The Bohemians believe in the power of classic rock and roll - and arrival of “The Dreamer” who will deliver it back to them.
The second legend is that it received terrible reviews when it opened in London in 2002, then ran for 12 years until 2014, with 28 worldwide productions being seen by 16 million people (or 3 superfans, monkey is not sure which). Either way, highly lucrative popular theatre.
The professional reviewers who condemn the show are missing the point, the monkey feels. Not every musical need – or indeed should - be “Les Misérables” or “Standing At The Sky’s Edge.”
If you can gather a bunch of songs which in themselves mean everything to people, and weave them into a show that 16 million (or 3 etc, etc) want to hand over their very hard-earned cash to see, then the connection with humanity and emotion is every bit as deep as musicals constructed with the purpose of exploring these things. That’s an achievement which only pure snobbery and condescension could leave unrecognised.
The show functions well enough on a panto level of sophistication. There’s a daft, deftly updated book from Ben Elton (“little bit of politics / it’s in the DNA” he parodies himself wonderfully in the second half). The songs are not so much shoe-horned in as plunked down for everything else to grow around, and the whole is none the worse for it.
Frankly, even the snottiest reviewer cannot fail to acknowledge there isn’t a weak tune in the show, which is more than can be said for most musicals. The monkey had almost forgotten one or two and, while the headliners are strong, “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” was its favourite reminder of just how widely Freddie Mercury’s talents extended.
There are some excellent performances. Ian Mcintosh as Galileo smashes “Bohemian Rhapsody” and finds the comedy almost as easy to deal with.
His purple-haired Scaramouche Elena Skye out-thinks him at every turn with a sharp, clever and entirely lovable witty strength. Her costumes, along with the rest of Kentaur’s ideas just add to the characters.
Ben Elton pushes himself to the limit as rebel leader Pop. Less a musical theatre triple-threat, more a single “brick-through-the-window statement” to that community, he’s probably more authentic than every professionally trained actor / singer / dancer on the stage in terms of character. Put another way, he’s Ben Elton having fun – and so do we. Oh, and a couple of his jokes are belters – one visual gag in particular.
Notes too for Christine Allado, with a perfect solo as character Meat. Jenny O’Leary as Killer Queen sells her big solo, and unlucky underling Lee Mead as Khashoggi was probably unwise to fall foul of her. On the other hand, he gets most of the second act off, so, win-win really.
Stufish Entertainment Architects are credited with the video-wall set. Their computer game and mall segments work particularly well and the whole feels at home in what was once a music hall of popular mass entertainment.
Biggest credit must go to Jacob Fearey as choreographer. Restricted by the homogeny Globalsoft insist on at the start, he finds inventive ways to keep the dance visuals rigid until he can unlock joyously as the Bohemians arrives. He even manages a little solo Scaramouche fandango to finish. Only the mall sequence early in act one perhaps needs a little tidy to keep the discipline of the line he is aiming for.
The second half storyline, in common with most musicals, does collapse well before the end, but the message is very clear and it seems even more important now than when the show was first written.
Forbidding music at government level and allowing corporations to take control of lives is a clear warning about dangers of limiting freedom of expression. Remove a single element – music here, words and our very freedom outside the theatre – and invasive constant monitoring and reduction of names to numbers becomes a reality.
Accept that the songs are classic, the performances energetic and the staging lively and there is no reason not to find something to love. This is not Rogers and Hammerstein, Andrew Lloyd Webber or Boublil and Schonberg. There’s no finesse and there does not need to be. It entertains the open-minded with a useful message perhaps, if you wish to analyse it further.
5 stars for Queen fans, fans of the show and lovers of this particular musical theatre genre. Probably 3 for those wanting a lot more substance and only overt intellectual boasting rights after. In that case, forget this show, this one is Rock and Roll that will live forever.
Photo credit: Manuel Harlan. used by kind permission.