Finally I had someone who was willing to go see this musical with me. Lana managed to score a group of us some cheap tickets to see this musical. You won’t find any Queen in my collection of music but I’ve heard their music so often that I almost feel like a fan of theirs. Almost. The musical tells of a time in the future where musical instruments are banned and all music is generated by the Globalsoft Corporation, hits are programmed in advance and dance moves are strictly imposed. There is no rock n roll. “Is this the real life? Is it just fantasy?”. Of course, as in any good story, there are rebels, in the form of the Bohemians, who are looking for a hero to lead them back into the Golden Age of music. But lets not focus on the story too much – this is the kind of show that you go to for the music. Clearly demonstrated by the 30-40+ year old women behind us who were stomping their feet (and kicking the back of our chairs), clapping their hands and whooping it up like crazy. Talk about atmosphere.

The singing, the dancing, the staging, the lighting, the technology!, the costumes – it was all fantastic. Leads were good, however the guy who played Galileo – our hero – was rather annoying as an actor. I think he should stick to singing and dancing. Favourite character was Galileo’s (eventual) punk girlfriend Scaramouche. It probably helped that she had the best (and least corny) lines to work with. Her delivery was superb.

As an aside the musical has obviously been adapted to the local environment with references to the Underground and Wembley Stadium. With this musical playing in many other cities, including Melbourne, it would be interesting to compare all the local references.

Overall the performance was very entertaining (and loud!). The audience were clearly enthralled as represented by the number of encores which, incidentally, ensured that we were humming Queen songs long into the night.