Sheffield Lyceum – until 5 October 2019
Reviewed by Lottie Davis-Browne
3***
Following a successful twelve year run at London’s Dominion Theatre, where it was performed an astonishing 4,600 times, jukebox musical “We Will Rock You” is back for a “re-imagined” production – although having never seen the original I have nothing to compare it to. It features twenty-four of Queen’s biggest, a witty (yet often stale) script by Ben Elton, and for die hard Queen fans it recreates some of the scale and spectacle that marked the bands legendary live performances.
The storyline, if you can call it that, is mediocre – set in futuristic “the planet formally known as Earth” where people are programmed to look, think and dress the same, at Ga Ga University which, like the rest of the planet, is controlled by corporate giant Global Soft. Musical instruments are banned and all that consists in terms of music are computer simulated boy and girl bands which all look and sound the same (the Stock, Aitken and Waterman of the future!). A bohemian who goes by the name of Galileo (Ian McIntosh – “Beautiful” and “The Commitments”) rebel’s against Global Soft leaders Killer Queen (Jenny O’Leary – “Heathers”) and Khashoggi (Adam Strong) and flees to find a group of like-minded Bohemians who struggle to restore freedom of thought, music and fashion.
Whilst the storyline is a one-way ticket to snooze-ville, Queen fans won’t be disappointed by hearing the bands hits performed live, but for regular theatre fans there’s not much else there apart from the music. It failed to move me in the slightest, let alone “Rock” me, however the futuristic stage set and video animations and graphics were surprisingly stunning and at times hypnotic. Killer Queen and Khashoggi as characters are nothing more than novelty pantomime villains, simply there for the entertainment factor. At times it was painful to watch, especially all of Act Two where the weak plot ended with little or no explanation. Had I have been alone and bought the tickets, I’d have left at the interval. The songs crop up at random moments, often without any logical explanation or reliance to the “plot”.
The audience was mainly filled with diehard Queen fans sporting faded t-shirts from the bands glory days, paired with some 1970s/1980s baggy leather jackets – not the average theatregoers – who stated how “fantastic” the show was during the interval. The sparse regular theatregoers and critics in the audience tonight however, shared the same views as myself – that as a musical it is cringeworthy and merely nothing more than a glorified tribute to the late Freddy Mercury and Queen.
If you have all the albums and are still totally Ga Ga for Queens music, this show is for you. If you’ve moved onto the 21st Century but don’t mind the odd Queen song, I recommend staying at home and watching Bohemian Rhapsody instead, at least that has an actual story line.