We Will Rock You - U.K. Tour

My reminder email for Ipswich tomorrow states Act One 1 hour 20 minutes, 20 minute interval, Act Two 1 hour 10 minutes.

So just shy of 3 hours overall.

Saw the afternoon show.

The theatre had signs up saying it finished at 5, but it was closer to 5.15.

The character of Pop has been totally eliminated. Not sure how long it has been like that as I didn’t see it in London in the last year or two.

How was the set / staging etc is it as bad as the video review mentioned ?

How do they deal with that element of the "plot" then? Has Days of Our Lives been cut?

Yes I did. Train arrived at Ipswich almost an hour late at 2pm. No taxis, walked the mile to the theatre in 15 minutes and had picked up my ticket and sat down by 2.25. All too stressful but so happy and relieved I made it

Act 1 was 1 hour 15 minutes, interval almost 25 minutes, Act 2 was 1 hour. Started a few minutes late and finished as Figaro says just before 5.15. I enjoyed it as much as I did the original production.

I thought the staging was as good as can be expected for a touring production, visiting venues far smaller than the Dominion. Some changes to the script, mainly updated pop culture references, but broadly as I recall it. The video screens and projections are very effective and there's adequate props. Strong cast, especially, I thought, Killer Queen and Galileo. All the hits are there of course.  Audience loved it.

It will fill venues and could tour almost indefinitely. Regional theatre  needs crowd-pleasing wide appeal shows like We Will Rock You at a time when a lot of musicals seem to be under-performing. I predict it will rival The Boys for commercial success and a West End run will eventually follow.

From my own experience of watching WWRY over the years,the audiences generally weren’t too bad (compared to Mamma Mia! anyway!). Mainly sang along with Bo Rap if anything. 

 I do enjoy listening to these reviews. For all the wrong reasons

I saw the show this week in Newcastle and sad to say I was really disappointed. Couldn't help comparing it to previous tours and the West End version, which were all far superior. The set was mainly all done on the LED screens (not great) and the few other bits of set seemed to shake, things didn't always fit together properly when constantly being moved around/brought on and off. Elena as Scaramouche and Amy as Oz were by far the best performers, great singers. Not much chemistry between Gallileo and Scaramouche. Often it sounded like the band were drowning out the singing (particularly Killer Queen). A couple of people in our row left about 20 minutes after it started. A few dozen stood up at the end but no full standing ovation which I've usually seen at this show. Hopefully it may improve as the tour progresses.

Well, I've just come out of the show here in Dublin and I loved it. Must say, it's been so long that I saw the original version that I've forgotten most about it, so can't really compare. And people who know me know that I've been trying to adopt WWRY as a substitute drug for Bat out of Hell and THAT sure as hell doesn't work. None of the songs are anywhere near the amazing spectacle of that one, but on the other hand, did it help Bat to shift tickets? Not really.

So... I didn't mind the LED screens, in fact I thought they worked very well both for the futuristic setting of the show and for the music video aesthetic of the QUEEN hits, especially in A Kind of Magic and One Vision. And while there were no carpenters at work here with hammer and saw, amazing video artwork like this doesn't come cheap either, so to me the et didn't feel cheap at all. The few proper props/set bits that were in use WERE rather wonky and wobbly though.

The cast was uniformly amazing, not a weak link there with big voices all around and Ian McIntosh and Elena Skye a very loveable leading duo. The atmosphere in the sold out Bord Gais Energy Theatre (what a lovely theatre, too!) was terrific with everyone clapping and waving along to We Will Rock You and We Are The Champions.

Call me a sad old bag, but I much prefer this kind of show with terrific rock songs, that leaves you walking out of the theatre with a big fat smile to all these new bland forgettable pop scores and plots firmly aimed at teenagers. I won't be able to catch this tour again in the near future, but personally I really think it's worth going if you like good rock music.

Thought this was just a mishap that happened at the performance I saw!

I suspected with Phil McIntyre being attached to this that it was going to be pretty poor.
We weren't ever going to get the spectacle of the Dominion production but I'd hoped for better than this...!
I'll probably still go on a cheap seat, as the show has personal value (was the final show I did at school so I have a soft spot for it!)

Caught this last weekend. Lots of corpsing as it went on, couldn't say if it was scripted or not but the audience were eating it up and it looked like genuine fun on stage. It did take a while to take off but the songs just make it indestructible.

The digital set worked despite the rickety steps that clearly had a stage hand holding them in place. A bit of clumsy banging during one scene transition but the motorcycle exit was deftly handled by Buddy Holly with a wink.

Hated it in the Dominion but on tour it's the perfect combination of cheese and ham.