Britney Spears Died for Rock and ROLL

We Will Rock You

It wasn’t exactly what I expected, but it was alright. The vocals were the best part of the night. I loved every song, but I just couldn’t get into the plot line. I found myself laughing a lot because it was so loosely held together and the jokes were so obviously thrown in. To put it simply, digital music had taken over and the real talent was lost and a bunch of rebels named the Bohemians were trying to restore what was the equivalent of the rock and roll bible, which was a tape of Queen performing. The main character is a threat to society because he can heard original thoughts and music in his head, so their government tries to destroy him through some sort of lobotomy but they fail and he obviously ends up saving rock and roll. It was definitely meant for an older audience, as I heard the little girl asking her mother quite often what the sexual innuendos meant. I also was extremely put off by the graphics projected on the wall behind the performers. I know that it’s supposed to be futuristic, and that it’s an on going award winning show and of course they know what they’re doing and it’s state of the art, but it was not impressive. If they were going to cut down on cost of actors by having animated dancers in the background, they could have at least thrown a little of that money towards a better computer graphics artist. Maybe there’s some huge metaphor about life that I’m missing, but even if it’s about the way the future is coming on too quickly and that soon we will be nothing more than an avatar and html address, it wasn’t aesthetically appeasing and so the meaning was lost on me.

I sort of like the costumes. The GaGa girls had really cool costumes, but they weren’t in the play that much. The main characters mostly romped around in tattered clothes, until they had their ‘make over’ to which they wore more fashionably tattered clothes. The main bad lady, who I think was supposed to be really sexy, really didn’t have the best costumes. It’s probably because I’m not a hardcore rocker chick, or because we got there a little late and I missed the opening number that set up the obviously really complicated plotline, but I think I’d much rather indulge in the glitter and feathers at the Moulin Rouge. Although one of the lead Bohemian's was named Britney Spears, which was awesomely awesome.

I did, however, love to see my Dad bouncing along with the music. That was by far the best part of the night. During intermission my Dad went and got us ice cream and I turned to Martin and said 'Geeze Quarmby wasn't kidding' about the ice cream at intermission time thing and my Mom kept leaning over and telling me how cool it was that this was just around the corner from where I live and that I get to walk past such a neat production every day and I thought to myself, yeah, that is pretty fricken sweet.

At the end, we all stood up and sang Bohemian Rhapsody and danced and even though the plot line sucked and the main character sounded like he’d been kicked in the nether region, I clapped until my hands were beating red. It was one of those times where it didn’t matter what I was doing, or what I was watching, being there with my parents and Martin watching a show while we were all across the pond together made it my best London theatre experience yet.

Kimmy Helling
UCSB