On British Musicals
While in London i met up with my British friend. She showed me around the city and told me all about what it’s like to be a Londoner. One thing that I find fascinating about England is their apparant lack of taste. Many people will angrily jump on that statement and quote bands like The Beatles or The Rolling Stones, scribes like William Shakespeare or the comic genius of Mr. Bean. While i do not deny the fact that excellent music/theatre/tv has come out of England in the last few centuries that doesn’t change the fact that we’re talking about a place whose idealization of reality tv and pop stars surpasses even our ‘friendly’ neighbours to the South. An interesting thing about the reality tv here, though, is that its immense popularity has created a loop whereby reality tv shows like X-Factor create pop stars that will later end up on a season Celebrity Big Brother.
This brings me to my first foray into British theatre: We Will Rock You. At first glance this looked like a flawless idea for a musical. Set to the music of Queen, it takes place in a dystopian future where all music is manufactured by machines and actual instuments are banned. Based on the success of such discography-turned-musicals of ABBA and the Beatles i was more then a little intrigued. To top it all off, We Will Rock You has been on the London stage for 7 years. In a city where a new musical will open and close in the same month, i couldn’t go wrong.
Where to begin on how wrong I was…
Sets
I was immediately confused as to where the budget for a musical that has been around for 7 years could possibly go. A futuristic rock-opera can do better then screens showing Microsoft Word clipart and computer animation that would have looked cutting edge 10 years ago.
Plot
Essentially, the plot is a cheap ripoff of The Matrix with Queen songs squeezed in between actual progression. There were holes in so many places, i don’t even know where to start. Certain situations were obviously just slotted in to fit a popular Queen song that otherwise would have made even less sense. Fat Bottom Girls, for example, had no place in the plot, but a random pointless song break with the only “well rounded” women was apparently necessary. This is easily compared to Mamma Mia, where the creators were hindered by a pre-existing set of lyrics and yet seemlessly meshed each song into the plot.
Irony
Throughout this whole experience i couldn’t help thinking that the musical comes across as being unintentionally ironic. Throughout the performance the characters make jokes about how music was destroyed by Simon Cowell and reality tv. The whole point of the show, in fact was to point out how horrible the British mainsteam music scene has become. Ultimately, though, We Will Rock You ends up being a soulless pop musical with as little staying power as the very pop stars it tries to make fun of. Well, at least anywhere but England.
