★★★★☆
Even though Queen are not onstage tonight, their spirit is, and it’s ready to slay.
Penned by Ben Elton in 2001 in collaboration with Queen, We Will Rock You takes the band’s most legendary tracks and imbues them deep into its heart, leaving before us a performance of champions. Like the band, it’s spirited, rebellious and accessible in the face of abnormality, heavy on the pomp and grandeur and completely rock’n’roll.
We Will Rock You is a futuristic tale of a world devoid of rock music – call it the Footloose of rock musicals if you will – where all trace of this musical era has been wiped away. The creation of music has been banned by the Killer Queen (Casey Donovan) who keeps the kids at bay by hooking them onto social media and feeding them curated doses of pop drivel.
But there are rebels like Galileo Figaro (Gareth Keegan) and Scaramouche (Erin Clare) who have rock’n’roll in their veins (and names). Like a man possessed, Galileo spits out lyrics from ’70s rock to noughties pop and bursts into Queen song after Queen song with no inkling of why or what it means. That is, until he meets the Bohemians, a group of renegades obsessed with piecing together knowledge of when rock ruled the airwaves. They dress in honour of their heroes Ozzy Osbourne (Jaz Flowers), Britney Spears (Thern Reynolds) and Buddy Holly (Brian Mannix), worship at the altar of Freddie Mercury and long to find the ‘dreamer’, a person whose memories can bring rock’n’roll back to the world.
Much applause must be given to costume designer Tim Goodchild for imagining up a futuristic world filled with Barbie dolls and anarchists bathed in stellar colour and runway-worthy couture. But while larger-than-life comedic duo Flowers and Reynolds bring some colour and shade to the performance and Keegan holds his own well, it’s Clare who steals the show. This leading lady never ceases to surprise with her sass, charm and powerful vocals. Like the music of Queen before her, she has the ability to tear into the audience’s hearts and veins and leave them in utter rhapsody.
We Will Rock Youis now playing at the Sydney Lyric Theatre.
