The Longest Bad Joke Ever Told

AKA: We Will Rock You--The musical by Queen

Free tickets are always a good thing--they leave you with more cash in your wallet for expensive drinks and food. So, when Brett gave us his tickets to We Will Rock You at the Canon theatre I didn't think there was any reason to turn them down. The tickets ran at about a hundred dollars a pop, and they were orchestra centre. Perfect. Or more painful...

We Will Rock You is officially the longest bad joke ever ever ever told. It starts bad and gets worse. The singing is somewhat admirable; like many Toronto theatrical performances they all know how to carry a note, even if the tune isn't made for them. The lead had his way--french. His costar did the overacting thing that is typical of a musical. But the writing was truly atrocious. Hands down, it just didn't work. Half the scenes were just the repetition of lines from Queen songs, and the bulk of the jokes that didn't rely heavily on that device were outdated musical references. Overplayed antics hitting on patriotic fervour really hurt in the second act. All in all, the watered down rum and coke I was sucking back couldn't even save me.

By intermission I was begging to leave. I was placated with a bag of popcorn instead. It was dry. I spent the majority of my time thinking, these people must have a lot of money to get all dressed up to come see something like this--to eat popcorn and drink watery rum in one of the nicest theatres in Toronto. The Canon is gorgeous. It is the sort of place that is built purely to impress, with very little thought to function. This is how all theatres should be built. You are forced to take your time, pause a little, after the performance because the exits are so crowded that rushing only makes matters worse. After We Will Rock You, I kept my cool and filed out. But I didn't have the same calm, inspired, or even contented feeling that I usually got from a night out. I thought about how the poor theatre looked worse than most cineplexes and stifled a sob.

Maybe I'm being a bit melodramatic, but it really was a bad show. On the whole it was just flat. Older people with a taste for nostalgia and too much money might appreciate it, but only on a very shallow level. Not all theatre has to be high brow and philosophical, but they could have given me something better to think about than why the big black guy named himself Britney Spears and the blonde from Rock Star:INXS who couldn't walk properly (let alone dance) went by Ozzy--not so clever if you ask me. Someone's misguided vision of irony I suppose...