Queen Still Rocks You

Cast members of the new Australian production of We Will Rock You and writer / director Ben Elton chat about Queen, and the show, with Neil Litchfield.

The songs of rock super band Queen have their place in the soundtrack of most of our lives. In my early twenties, my then-girlfriend and I claimed ‘You’re My Best Friend’ as ‘our’ song. It’s only natural, then, that everyone involved in a show featuring Queen’s music has their own personal connection.

Ben Elton clearly recalls “listening to ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ through the entire autumn of 1975. So my memory of being a lonely, sad slightly scared student was listening to Freddie and the boys. That memory has always stayed with me.

“Queen was so eclectic. If you go to a wedding you’re going to hear ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’ just before ‘Dancing Queen’.”

Musical Supervisor Guy Simpson remembers, “I grew up as a nerdy classical pianist at the Conservatorium. I was a bit narrow in my musical upbringing but I always loved Queen. I remember going to the Hordern Pavilion and seeing Queen in Concert. They’d just released A Night at the Opera, which for all us classical music nerds combined everything – classic with rock. I’ll never forget seeing Freddie Mercury strutting around that stage. Then it was such a wonderful thing to meet Brian (May), one of my idols from the past, when I conducted the show twelve years ago.”

For Jaz Flowers, playing Oz, “Growing up I always heard their songs, but didn’t know who they were by. Then I came into the rehearsal room, realizing on the spot that they wrote so many amazing songs that I’d grown up listening to, enjoying, and singing along in the car trying to do 75 parts at once in ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ on long trips. It’s fun how it’s all of a sudden become a massive part of my life.”

As for a favourite song she sings in the show, Jaz says, “Mine’s got to be ‘No One Like You (Only the Good Die Young)”. That’s Oz’s big song, and I think everyone, at some point in their life, has had someone disappear a little bit too soon. It’s a magical experience to be able to express that through singing.”

Brian Mannix, who plays Buddy, loves that moment in the show too. “I’m in that scene.  It’s the most tragic, sad song I’ve ever heard, and the way Jaz Flowers sings it just about makes you cry. I think about the footie while it’s on, otherwise I’ll start sobbing. The guys wrote it after Freddie died, and it’s just about death – it’s tragic, but beautiful.”

It’s lesser-known Queen songs that stand out for Simon Russell (Khashoggi). “When I was a teenager, I found a tape of my mum’s or my uncle’s which had all the early Queen hits on it, so for me, all the really obscure ones are the ones that I love. There’s a couple in the show – ‘Now I’m Here’ and ‘Seven Seeds of Rhye’, which I sing in the show.

“I remember just rocking around my bedroom singing ‘Seven Seeds of Rhye’. I had a tennis racquet, which doubled as a mic, and then as the guitar – you had to have a prop.”

Erin Clare (Scaramouche) loves the theatricality of Queen. “Look at Freddie as a front man, and I think it resonates for anyone who is in music theatre because it’s so much larger than life, it’s quite ridiculous, and my life can sometimes emulate the ridiculous.

“We’ve been talking a lot about why Freddie wrote Scaramouche’s main song ‘Somebody to Love’ – not really outwardly finding somebody to love, but finding the love for yourself, and that kind of self-acceptance. That is something that so many people struggle with now, so I love the frustration, and the human element to that song.”

Watching a rehearsal of We Will Rock You, I can’t help but marvel at the Ensemble; talented triple threats all, they’re the heart and soul of Australian musical theatre and potential stars into the future. With the media scrum forming around the stars at this press call, I chatted to a group of the ensemble members who had just treated us to the high energy act two opener.

“My parents loved Queen, and at every get-together ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ played about 10 times,” says Sheridan Anderson. “The first album I was given, when I was ten, was Queen’s Greatest Hits. I grew up with every song, but, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ aside, ‘You’re My Best Friend’ is my favourite – it’s just got such a nice message.”

“I collect vinyl,” Erinn Arnel tells me, “and when I was in Year 10 I found Queen’s Greatest Hits in a second hand record store. The song I loved most was ‘I Want To Break Free’. There’s something about it - I love the guitar riff. I performed it with Chunky Move a few years ago, so it will just never get old and will be one of those very special moments that you bring yourself back to.”

“I really love ‘I Want it All’, because I grew up in the suburbs,” says Mike Snell. “I started dancing when I was 17, and just didn’t think I could do what I’m doing today – perform every night of my life and earn money. I didn’t know it was an actual career path. It’s got a great message for young people who are setting huge goals in their lives, who think they can’t do it.”

“I first discovered Queen because I grew up in a rural area with dial up internet, so I wasn’t listening to anything over the internet,” Hugh Barrington recalls. “I was going through my parents’ records all the time, and I found A Night at the Opera. I fell in love with ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, but if I had to take that out of the mix, my favourite song would be ‘Love of My Life’. I love the live version, where Brian May is playing on the 12 string acoustic guitar – Queen flies into a massive concert on a helicopter – they rock out, and then there’s this moment where it goes very quiet. There’s just Brian May playing on a twelve string, and Freddie singing, and the crowd goes nuts, and sings along in that brilliant way the British just sing along at rock concerts.”

Technology has mushroomed exponentially since We Will Rock You premiered in 2002, and the musical we are seeing in 2016 has been re-worked to reflect those changes.

“When we were working on this in 1999, it was all about a possible time when people could literally access all their entertainment online,” says Elton.

“That was five years before the iPhone, and the technology predicted in We Will Rock You is happening much quicker than anybody thought. Facebook hadn’t been invented, and one of the themes in We Will Rock You is social isolation. Scaramouche and Galileo want to be different, but the media is constantly trying to get them to be the same, and buy into an American Idol version of what rock’n’roll is, and this isn’t what they want to do. They want to be friends.

“I thought, how about introducing a new element with Facebook, where not only are electric guitars banned, but real friendship is banned – only online friendship is seen as valid to society. So I’ve introduced an element into the show, whereby when Galileo and Scaramouche meet, they’re scared, because real time friendship is illegal. So they meet for the first time, and even though they’ve got a million friends on Facebook, they realize that they’ve only just met their first friend, which makes them their best friend, and they sing. ‘You’re My Best Friend’ wasn’t in the musical originally, it hasn’t been in for the first 14 years of its life, but it’s in the show now, and I think it’s a lovely way to introduce a beautiful song about friendship in a very interesting, satirical manner.”

One thing is certain, we don’t need to rely on memory, the music of Queen continues to attract music lovers of all ages and Jaz Flowers sums it up beautifully.

“I hate stating the obvious, but it’s QUEEN,” says Jaz. “It’s not a bit from here, and a bit from there, and a band that someone sort of knows at one point or another – it’s QUEEN. Everybody in the world knows who they are. The music just speaks for itself.”

We Will Rock You opened at Sydney’s Lyric Theatre in May, ahead of seasons at the Lyric Theatre, QPAC, Brisbane (July); Melbourne’s Regent Theatre (August); Perth’s Crown Theatre (November), then the Festival Theatre, Adelaide (January, 2017).

Photographer: Jeff Busby.