We Will Rock You (musical)
We Will Rock You is a jukebox musical written by Ben Elton based on the music of Queen. It was originally released on 2002-05-14 in London's West End. The musical's plot is that, in the future, all musical instruments and music recorded from them have been banned by the government and replaced with computer-produced commercial audio instead. A small group of rebels have been collecting remnants of the music's bygone era and formed a religious cult around the artifacts prophesying that a man will one day bring music back into the world. The musical contains music from about about 30 Queen songs, although about half of them are pared down, some only containing brief instrumentals.
Personal
As a huge Queen fan, I followed We Will Rock You when it was in production in 2001. I was really excited to see it, but, after it opened, there were no plans for an American tour. I finally got a chance to see it on 2019-11-23, 17 years later during the second North American tour. It did not live up to my expectations at all.
Review
— This section contains spoilers! —
Good
- I love hearing professional singers and musicians play from Queen's catalog.
- From what I know of the band, the story fits their views of how bad soulless music is, which is nice.
Bad
- I'm not a fan of jukebox musicals in general because the writers are forced to create a very contrived story to include a bunch of completely unrelated songs. This one wasn't too bad, but it seemed very derivative of Rush's 2112.
- Some of the humor is a topical, and, therefore, now dated. Jokes about the Spice Girls may have still be funny in 2001, but in 2019, they're totally irrelevant and should have been updated.
Ugly
- Many of the scenes are ridiculous and the dialogue is extremely hokey.
- The humor is unsophisticated and childish. This really ruined the show for me.
Media
Book, hardcover.
Original London Cast recording.
Links
