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| Brian May and Roger Taylor on stage at We Will Rock You |
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Queen Are the ChampionsDate: 30 April 2007
What do you do when your opening night notices are damning? Rather than let another one bite the dust at the hand of the critics, Brian May & the We Will Rock You team decided to keep on fighting – triumphantly – till the end
Disastrous, lamentable, naff and puerile aren’t the kind of words normally associated with a hit show. But in May 2002 those – and others even less flattering – were amongst the almost universally disparaging verdicts passed on We Will Rock You in one of the worst critical bloodbaths ever seen in the West End.
In the wake of Mamma Mia!, fashioned around Abba’s back catalogue, this new £7.5 million compilation musical – featuring 32 hits of glam rockers Queen, from "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" to "Under Pressure", "Radio Gaga", “We Are the Champions”, "Bohemian Rhapsody" and the title song – suffered by comparison. Particular scorn was heaped on former comedian Ben Elton’s “unfunny” futuristic script, which sets the story on Planet Mall, where the rebel Bohemians are on a quest to recover the true spirit of rock. “Pathetic, or what?” hooted one scribe. An early closure and huge losses were roundly predicted.
But five years, ten international productions and five million enthusiastic worldwide audience members later, We Will Rock You is still rocking on, holding two fingers up to the critical and theatrical establishment. Queen’s Brian May, one of the show’s co-producers and musical supervisors, tells Terri Paddock why success is the sweetest revenge.
Why did you want to do a Queen musical?
It was a slow evolution. Way back in 1986, when we were playing what were meant to be our last Queen concerts ever, I remember the subject coming up, as one of those things which might be nice to try, in the distant future. We didn’t really like musicals. Great songs tend to be born unpredictably, in different situations, not written to order. It’s no wonder that many of the songs in traditional “non-catalogue” musicals are bland and narrow. A show like WWRY has an unfair advantage – we can choose the very best of four writers' output over 30 years, cherry-picking amongst songs which are all hits already.
Whose idea was WWRY in particular?
Actually getting the show up and running was mainly Robert De Niro’s idea. We met him at the Venice Film Festival about ten years ago. He saw our collection of film shorts and had a strong feeling that our music could power a musical. He promised to match us dollar for dollar in the development costs.
How were the songs & plot developed?
It’s Ben Elton, myself and Roger Taylor (of Queen) who artistically determine the path of WWRY. Adapting songs to fit a script which is already written around those songs is not such a hard job, because the themes in the show are all subjects we have visited in the songs anyway, just in slightly different contexts. So the amount of lyrical adaptation was mostly small. Musically a lot of invention was needed to transform the songs into theatrical numbers – solos, duets, ensemble pieces. The plot was Ben’s greatest gift to us. He liberated us from the invidious scenario of trying to write a piece about history: Queen, Freddie, our “story”. We had already workshopped ideas in this direction and felt very uncomfortable. Ben came up with the wonderful concept of a story set in the future, where real music is banned, and immediately the ideas flowed. Ben’s script is derided by those who do not “get it”, but he’s much cleverer than his critics. The script is deceptively light; hidden in it are all the triggers to make sure that people emerging from the theatre feel as if they have somehow seen us, Queen, felt how we struggled, heard how we laughed, shared our tears and our insane optimism.
What was the West End opening night like?
We had just been through a massive trauma, having realised in previews that the guy we initially hired as director (Christopher Renshaw) had failed to achieve a working show. Ben walked back in and took over the direction at our request, the whole team worked like demons, and together we completely reworked the show in the space of two days. It was very exciting, real seat-of-the-pants stuff, and that opening night was great. The show was not the sharply honed entity that it has become, but certainly it had the essentials, and tons of joy.
WWRY famously got some pretty awful notices. How did you feel when you read them?
Yes, I like the “famously” bit! Reading that awful muck the papers printed about the honest efforts of ourselves and our beautiful company was very sad-making. But we had the last laugh. And we’re still having it – every day! I think we stand as a proud symbol of how little the critics know or matter. In a way, the vitriol hurled at us made us stronger, but it was very upsetting at the time – we’re only human. My favourite comment? I think the guy’s name was Charles Spencer. He opened up his review by saying something to the effect that he preferred the music of the Wombles to that of Queen – I think he defined himself right there! Well, three million happy customers later in London alone, I think it’s clear that the public, the real people, made their own decision. I know now that these critics almost always miss the point. I regard them as a redundant species. Most of them seem to be part of a little clique which safeguards the mediocre – the kind of stuff which wins Olivier awards! This is why we all value the Whatsonstage.com Awards (WWRY won five in 2003, including Best New Musical) – they actually reflect how normal people feel about the shows they’ve seen.
What’s been your proudest WWRY moment? And your biggest disappointment?
The most amazing moment has to be the Queen’s Party in the Palace, where we played with our WWRY company, live, to billions on TV. That was a wonderful shared experience. The moment where I was on the roof I was very alone of course, but I came down to a great cheer. The biggest disappointment? Probably losing Las Vegas. But you learn your biggest lessons from your failures. Our miscalculation there was trying to build on a word-of-mouth basis in a population which is 90 percent itinerant. We won’t make that mistake again.
What are your plans for the show’s future?
We plan to stay at the Dominion forever and spread WWRY around the world – but only at a pace consistent with making each show special to the country it’s in. We don’t believe in rubber-stamping. I’ve just come home from a great opening night in Toronto. Every WWRY show is very different. This one is tailored to the history of rock in Canada. We’ve now done ten openings around the world, and it gets more and more thrilling to see how far this adventure can take us. I see WWRY as a great way to give our work a future; not a fossilised, precious existence, but a living breathing, evolving thing, with teeth. My dream is that this show, in each new generation, will be living the spirit of Queen music long after we have all gone. And one day we also plan to go for the sequel we’ve been talking about for the last five years!
We Will Rock You celebrates its fifth birthday at the Dominion Theatre on 14 May, with a special performance involving Brian May, Roger Taylor and other guests. To read more of Brian May’s views on the show, the band and myriad other topics, visit his official blog “Bri’s Soapbox” at www.brianmay.com.
A version of this article appears in the May issue of What’s on Stage magazine (formerly Theatregoer), out now in participating theatres. To guarantee your copy of future editions - and also get all the benefit of our Theatregoers’ Club - click here to subscribe now!!
