Review of:

“We Will Rock You”

At The Dominion Theatre, London

26/03/05

By: Gaby

All the press reviews indicated that this was one monster of a musical and for once they were probably right.

No wonder it’s a smash hit now in it’s 3^rd successful year. I think it was probably hard to go wrong considering that the script was written by Ben Elton and the music was provided courtesy of Queen, but for me what seemed to make this show so good was the relative simplicity of the story and the way it was cleverly entwined around and gave homage to some of the finest Rock music ever written. Now some might say that all this show does is cash in on the “Queen” brand and that it over commercialises the band and their music, but I disagree. I believe what the show does do so well is pay homage to their music and brilliance whilst delivering their music to an ever larger audience.

The central theme of the story was about a certain time in the future when all musical instruments and self penned music was banned and instead the whole of society was caught up in some sort of nightmarish, horrific “big brother” multi-nationally owned sanitised numbness ie: “Ga Ga Land” in which personal freedom and self expression were repressed and re-addressed through brain washing and forced conformity and the resulting search for meaning, understanding and ultimately freedom.

Incredibly good special effects and visuals were used throughout this Rock Concert / Theatre performance including lasers and giant movable plasma screens with computer generated imagery and the sound was fantastic.

This for me was a high octane non-stop performance of sheer delight as we laughed our way through 3 hours of jokes and innuendo, cried and had a lump in our throats at the more emotional and thought provoking moments and took sheer delight at the Queen musical nostalgia tour unfolding before our senses.

One could hardly not join in and sing along to the numerous classic Queen anthems that have over the years stamped their mark upon our brains and which the cast more than admirably covered to almost perfection. There were times when I thought that Freddie Mercury must surly be looking down on this spectacular nodding and smiling with approval.

For if anything else this was a tribute to the music of Queen and how much their songs have indelibly stained and touched our minds and hearts.

This was a show for young and old alike and had a little something for everyone both music and theatre fans alike.

For Queen fans I would say it’s an absolutely must see show and for all others you could do far far worse than to check out this wonderfully entertaining musical. At the end of the day this is most certainly a show that will rock you and one that you should not miss.

On a side note check out the wonderful (some never before seen) photographs of the band in the Theatre’s gallery. It’s a treat!