Sunday, December 23, 2007

We Will Rock You, the musical


I was recently treated to We Will Rock You, the musical by Queen and Ben Elton. Guess I am stunned, coz I misunderstood what the show was; I thought it was a tribute band. However, I was quickly corrected but then relieved of new doubts. It is actually a storyline that initially is questionable, but you are quickly sucked into the 'world' therein and get into it. While the singing and choreography is good, I would say the writing is the most fun--very clever and very topical. There was one moment, however, where a character gets the equivalent of tasing and you could cut the tension in the hall with a knife. We attended a night with the understudies who were actually better than the main cast members, according to someone who went twice: Breanne Arrigo was endearingly feisty as Scaramouche, and Jewelle Blackman as Killer Queen was reminiscent of Tina Turner. The background multimedia visuals were absolutely fantastic, perhaps my favourite part of the show. There was a poignant nod to Freddie Mercury, a too-short video clip of Queen and tons of good-natured fun-poking at the group. Just completely good fun from start to finish: if you like Queen, you absolutely MUST go see this. You will indeed be rocked. (Even I, with my usual wasp-y reservation, let loose, so you know it must be good.) www.mirvish.com

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