A Kind of Magic – We Will Rock You

The show opens with a “history of rock music” projected on the scrim, and it’s a great way to set up the show. It sets up the type of music that you’re going to have throughout the show, gets a few laughs by some of the “highlights” chosen, and then goes on to establish the show’s setting in the future. I thought it was very effective.

The first act flowed really well until around the middle, when I felt there was too much of the Killer Queen all at once. It slowed things down, and felt repetitive, especially when they used the set piece to extend the character over the audience in two separate songs. Once was enough! The second act also felt a little bogged down towards the end. I guess they wanted to use as many songs as possible, even if they aren’t really necessary for the story. And then at the end there were a couple of concert-like performances, not unlike in Mamma Mia!

The show has been running for five years now, and they’ve obviously changed a bit of the dialogue to keep it fresh. For example, on the cast recording, there’s a line where Scaramouche says, “Britney Spears died to save us”. When I saw it, she said, “We wouldn’t have gotten away if it weren’t for Britney Spears”, and Galileo replied, “Yeah, it was a close shave.” 🙂

Being such a silly show, the cast is essential to sell it, and the cast I saw was really good. Both Jenna Lee James as Scaramouche and Rachael Wooding as Meat had fantastic rock belting voices. Peter Johannson was a really good Galileo, and Mazz Murray was perfectly over-the-top as the Killer Queen.

All in all, I don’t think anyone will ever try to argue that this is high art or an intelligent piece of theatre, but it IS entertaining, and sometimes that’s all you want!