The phenomenal worldwide success of Queen's multi-award-winning, box office records-shattering 2018 biopic Bohemian Rhapsody seemed to take even the group's co-founding members and tirelessly devoted custodians Brian May and Roger Taylor by surprise.
But perhaps it shouldn't have, for since the tragic passing of the band's iconic frontman Freddie Mercury in 1991, their global fanbase has exhibited, time and time, again a remarkable appetite and appreciation for the various projects developed to celebrate, safeguard and extend the band's legacy and legend. It's fair to say that not every brand extension has been met with equal acclaim - whatever your outlook on the group's work with Paul Rodgers in the noughties, for instance, chances are that you remember that collaboration with considerably more affection than, say, May and Taylor's decision, in 2000, to re-record We Will Rock You alongside English boy band Five.
Arguably the most divisive artistic venture championed by the band's surviving members, however, is the jukebox musical We Will Rock You, which opened in London in 2002. Based on an original idea by writer and comedian Ben Elton, whose writing credits include beloved British sitcoms Blackadder, The Young Ones, The Line Blue Line, Mr Bean and more, the musical is "set in a post-apocalyptic future where individuality has been outlawed and music is controlled by algorithms" and tells the tale of "two young revolutionaries - Galileo and Scaramouche - who dare to defy the system to save rock ‘n’ roll", according to an official synopsis.
"This fist-pumping, foot-stomping anthem to freedom and self-expression is a musical for our time," the musical's producers state, "unapologetically bold and filled with the timeless power of Queen’s legendary music."
"Tt is a musical," Brian May explained in 2014, "but we came into it as a body of people who really didn’t relate that well to the genre of musical theater. We didn’t want to put on something like My Fair Lady. This is rock and roll and it had to be something very different."
Whatever your perception of the production - which has played to over 20 million people in 28 countries since its premiere - it is, undeniably, different. But it would have been an entirely different project altogether had May and Taylor given the green light to the original pitch for the story, which was proposed by Hollywood legend Robert De Niro.
