Theatre Royal Windsor – until Saturday 22nd August 2026
Review by Mike Linane
3***
We Will Rock You is a jukebox musical based on the songs of British rock band Queen with a book by Ben Elton. The musical tells the story of a renegade group known as the Bohemians who struggle to restore the free exchange of thought and culture in a vaguely Orwellian society.
The plot is honestly quite naff but to coin a phrase ‘nothing really matters’ about it as it is just a vehicle to hang the songs of Queen around and it is to see and hear these songs performed that audiences will come for.
This is a community production of the former West End musical with the cast all from the local area and for the most part amateur and with little previous stage experience. Sometimes during this production it showed. It’s very brave of the producers to tackle this show as the songs written by Queen are not easy ones to sing live and some are performed better than others. The stand out song and performance of the night is delivered by Ella Murphy playing Oz when she sings No One But You (Only The Good Die Young).
Credit must be given to this mostly young and inexperienced cast for having the guts to put themselves out there and perform one iconic song after another knowing full well that they can’t compete with the incomparable Freddie Mercury.
There are lots of opportunities for the audience to sing along to their favourites songs, to clap their hands in time to the music and to wave their hands in the air declaring they are the champions.
The audience that attended the opening night performance clearly thoroughly enjoyed themselves judging from the rapturous applause they gave at the end.
This show will appeal to fans of the rock group Queen (obviously), but also to afficionados of jukebox musicals and tribute acts (although at no time do any of the cast pretend to be Queen).