THEATRE REVIEW: Killer Queen: Fierce young talent defying the laws of gravity

It’s a pulse-quickening new dance show oozing energy and rife with talent. But for those of us over a certain age, Killer Queen should perhaps come with a warning. Something like: ‘Hold on to your Zimmer frame!’

First there are the goosebumps, triggered by young, eminently talented Matt Blerk strutting onto stage, his white vest, yellow jacket and purpose-grown moustache screaming “Freddie Mercury”.

With determined swagger, Blerk marches towards the audience, poses, turns on an intoxicating smile, and as he starts to stomp and clap to a practised rhythm, radiates a kind of giddy-making energy that whips the entire theatre into a “We Will Rock You” froth.

Then, as he’s joined by more than 50 musical theatre students, he summons the spirit of one of the greatest rock bands the world has ever known.

For the next two hours what happens in that theatre is seldom short of heart-quickening.

It’s loud, it’s sexy, it’s exhilarating, and the vivacity is off the charts. It’s Killer Queen, a dance show celebrating not only the rich variety of Queen’s music, but using some fantastic, frequently fantastical choreography to explore deep inside the inner meaning of the songs and get at the emotional underbelly of the band’s legendary lead singer.

Not only does this young cast rock you, but they give you everything they’ve got – whether it’s a sequence that pulses with dizzying clubland beats or one that leans into the gentler, more technical requirements of romantic ballet, the dancing covers a wide gamut of styles, genres and influences.

One moment they’re showing off their tap or neoclassical ballet skills, the next instant it’s some extraordinarily high-energy, ultra-contemporary stuff that spans psychedelic rave and ballroom posing. And sometimes the glitchy, scratchy, hardcore doef-doef-doef beats in the vibrant remixes transform familiar tunes into throbbing dancefloor anthems – who can possibly resist dancing?

Some numbers are designed to be light, frothy and lots of fun, while other sequences – particularly those that touch on Mercury’s troubled personal life or work to express the awful impact of HIV/Aids – unapologetically lean into darker moods, becoming quite elegiac at times.

Occasionally, the pumping energy is turned down completely so you can almost hear the heartbeats of the dancers, their wilder physicality transforming into something more low-key and tender. And there a moments, too, when they graciously reference iconic 20th-century choreographers to interpret an emotion or capture a sensibility with such subtlety and heartfelt conviction.

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