Having seen both Scottish Theatre Forum (2007) and Carnegie Youth Theatre’s (2008) productions of ‘We Will Rock You’ I rushed out over a year ago to get our tickets for the Scottish stage of the UK tour at the Edinburgh Playhouse.

After having the tickets, for the first night Wednesday 4^th November, this long the half-hour delay to the start thanks to technical problems was a little frustrating, however the show itself was as brilliant as expected. From the first notes of music through the ‘Star Wars-esque’ opening visuals to the standing ovations the performers had the audience in the palm of their hands.

Some 300 years in the future the Earth as we know it has been remodelled ‘Globalsoft’ is the one and only master-power, the aim of which is to control electronically every thought and action of a population of Ga-Ga clones. Killer Queen (Brenda Edwards) digitally directs Planet Mall with the assistance of her hatchet man Khashoggi (Darren Day). The only virus in her computer world is a group of Rebels also known as ‘Bohemians’ who are seeking the Dreamer to will lead them to their “Rhapsody”, the first live Rock music to be heard for century’s. Galileo (Michael Falzon) and Scaramouche (Sarah French-Ellis) meet in a surgical recovery room are both outcasts because of their individuality. They decide to break free and are found by Britney (Wayne A Robinson) and Meat (Rachel John) two Bohemians in search of materials, which can be used to make musical sounds. The Ga-Ga police track down the Bohemians and send them to the Seven Seas of Rhye where we meet Pop (Kevin Kennedy) the last librarian who holds the missing link the catalytic clue pointing to the place of champions.

Will they succeed?  Will rock music be heard again? 

The technical staging was out of this world and extremely enjoyable, the costumes clever and varied, lighting effects superb, the cast phenomenal but the choreography not as amazing as anticipated. We thought that with the wealth of talent on stage Arlene Phillips might have made some of the ensemble numbers a little more spectacular. Author, comedian, TV writer and playwright Ben Elton wrote the book and directs.  One half of the phenomenon that is Queen Brian May and Roger Taylor are Music Supervisors on this musical, which is based on the songs jointly created by themselves and Freddie Mercury and John Deacon. For once we get a decent, if far fetched, storyline and the cult status of this musical just grows and grows.

We Will Rock You is on at the Edinburgh Playhouse Theatre until 9^th January 2010 for more details on the uk tour and the West End production go to www.wewillrockyou.co.uk 

Paul McIntyre, Queen Theatrical Productions and Tribeca Theatrical Productions in association with EMI, Paul Roberts, Michael Watt and Michael Coppel’s presentation.

We Will Rock You  -  Edinburgh last night