We Will Rock You

Woftam’s (World of Fine Theatre and Music) production of the Ben Elton / Queen Rock musical was a thoroughly entertaining premiere of one of the newest musicals to hit the amateur theatre circuit. The hilarious script by Elton had the audience in stitches the whole night, while clapping and foot tapping along to many of the Queen’s Rock classics.

This production was full of colour, from the bright and bold costumes worn by all cast, to the lighting and the small amount of set pieces that took us on the show’s journey.

The cast had an infectious energy which stood out in many of the leads’ performances.

The Rock musical takes place 300 years into the future of earth, now named the iPlanet, where all musical instruments have been banned and Rock is never heard of. The head of this “Earth” is Killer Queen (yes all lead roles are named after bands, musical icons or lyrics), who has control over the planet with her company Globalsoft.

Enter the mix our lead character/hero Galileo Figaro, dreamer, who keeps seeing visions of a world with Rock music and spouting lyrics to songs from the past, eg: ‘Hit me baby one more time’ etc, but he doesn’t know what they mean or where they came from. Seen as a rebel thinker, he is captured by Killer Queen and her chief of Police Commander Kashoggi. Then meet our heroine Scaramouche, another rebel thinker who won’t conform to Globalsoft’s ways. They then escape from Khashoggi in a comedic sequence. Lurking on the planet are other rebels called the Bohemians, lead by ‘Buddy Holly and The Crickets’, an ex- employee of Globalsoft who has stolen a Video Tapy from the archives that he believes will help them work out the mystery of what is Rock.

Another two rebels in Brit and Oz, a boyfriend and girlfriend duo, are out searching the I planet for items they think will make a musical instrument. They then stumble across Galileo and Scaramouche and join them to follow Gal’s dream of finding an ancient artefact (an Axe) that will play Rock music. 

The show features some of Queen’s all time biggest hits including “I want to break free”, sung by Scaramouch about not conforming to the Ga Ga Girls of Global Soft, “Under Pressure” sung by both Galileo and Scaramouche, “Seven Seas of Rhye” sung by Khashoggi, and of course “We Will Rock You” at the finale. An encore after bows of “Bohemian Rhapsody” was performed by the whole cast, lead by Galileo, to leave the audience singing off into the night. The band, lead by Director/Musical Director Peter Novakovich, played the Rock score to perfection – it really sounded like you were in a Queen concert.

There were some extremely talented performers amongst the cast and ensemble, including James Cassar as Galileo who lead the show with some powerful vocals and lovely harmonising. He has a youngish looking face but played the inquisitive rebel role well. He did struggle with his solos in “Bohemian Rhapsody” on the evening I attended and it seems nerves got the better of him leading into this number in the encore.

Lauren Waite played Scaramouche perfectly, with her bogan accent suiting her role. Vocally the stand out of the show, Lauren blew me away with her rendition of “Somebody To Love”, a favourite of mine. Her on stage chemistry with Cassar was clearly evident and was very believable.

Kat Feil as Killer Queen showed her vocal talents in “Another One Bites The Dust”, amongst many other numbers, and her commanding stage presence was just what the character needed, while she had some amazing costume pieces.

Other performances deserving mention came from Ben Taylor as Brit and Renee Ciaparra as Oz (she was also Dance Captain). Taylor’s fairly small time on stage didn’t mean his performance was small. Brit is a very comedic role and Taylor hammed it up, also shining vocally in “I Want It All”, his duet with Ciaparra.

The Choreography by Monique Barrios was effective and she got the best out of the dancing talent she had. The leads all moved well, which was a credit to Monique as she joined the show late in rehearsal period. Sometimes I thought the small stage was a little cramped in some of the ensemble numbers.

Novakovich’s direction was effective on the limited stage space, with the stripped back stage and limited set pieces working well to change settings.

The NSW Amateur Premiere of We Will Rock You was a celebration of Queen’s works. The cast and crew of Woftam’s production have provided a great beginning for a show that I’m sure will be done many times in the near future.

James Russell