WHEN I told a friend that I was going to see a show called We Will Rock You, a jukebox musical based around the music of Queen, they replied “Can’t be done”. When I asked why, they said “Because Freddy Mercury sang all of Queen’s songs and, as you can tell by the lack of artists who have tried to make cover versions of Queen’s numbers since Mercury died in 1991, trying to replicate the unique wide rage of his vocals is all but impossible.”

Undeterred by this view, equipped with a story and script supplied by comedian/writer Ben Elton, Cirencester-based TinkCo, under the high octane direction of Barry Austin, sallied forth to give fans of Queen’s music, and theatre goers looking for an evening full of energy and power, a night of vibrant entertainment. The story, set 300 years in the future when live music and musical instruments have been banned, is not a new one – you will find variations of the theme in several other shows. But laced with wicked Ben Elton one-liners, there is plenty to enjoy in the dialogue that fits between more than 25 whole or part Queen songs.

To get over the problem of who takes over the role of vocalist Freddy, director Austin and MD Matt Richardson (who fronts seven live musicians bringing the same enthusiasm and drive to the music as the vocalists) the songs are shared between seven principals and an ensemble demanding that their efforts be heard and seen loud and clear. As you can imagine in such a musically overcrowded production, characters have to be played in a broad manner, and dressed in Anne Mulholland’s wonderfully outrageous costumes to fit the characters and time, some splendid near-the-edge-of-OTT-drawn ones appear.

Doing a rock‘n’roll version of Jane and Wild Bill in Calamity, Lottie Waller, a feisty no nonsense Scaramouche, and Matt Perry as diffident dreamer Galileo Figaro, who in the end finds the solution to the new world’s problems, enjoy every note of the four Queen songs they share together in their on-and-off romance. Backing them to the hilt in their battle against Carrie-Jo Good, in top musical form as the vicious all-powerful Killer Queen, were Oz, Lizzy Barrett (another at the top of her vocal game), and the kilted powerhouse Brit Alex Barrett, searching for the Dreamer to lead The Bohemians back to a full musical life. In opposition, as the Killer Queen’s evil henchman Khashoggi was Richard Webb’s distinctively-drawn Iago-like policeman. And there is a lovely study of advancing old age deceiving memory from Matt Howard as an ageing Buddy Holly character.

With the choice of songs fitting remarkably well into Ben Elton’s story, and choreographers Samantha Reynolds and Stephanie Walsh making fine use of every inch of the Barn Theatre’s stage, by the time we reached We are the Champions and We Will Rock You, the audience needed no encouragement to join in, rising from their seats to show approval and giving the obvious answer to Galileo Figaro’s question – Do you want to hear Bohemian Rapsody?

GRP