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

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.

Jake Duley in one of many Freddie Mercury guises in Killer Queen. (Photo: Daniel Rutland Manners) Darker themes and deep emotional resonance are never shied away from in Killer Queen. (Photo: Daniel Rutland Manners) 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.

Pleasingly, these performers manage these extremes, along with everything in between, and they do so with tremendous aplomb.

And there are other uses of the body, too, that take your breath away in more unexpected ways – there’s the remarkable ingenuity at the start of Don’t Stop Me Now, for example, when Blerk, summoning yet another aspect of Mercury’s artistry, momentarily plays a piano cleverly constructed from a muddle of humans.

Along with such whimsical innovations, it’s gratifying how often the choreography brings an unexpected twist to a song. Fat Bottomed Girls, for example, has been turned into a wonderful Wild West number sung complete with singing, dancing cowgirls – and cowboys who turn up clad in Stetsons and the naughtiest cowhide chaps. What unfolds is an absolute hoot!

An unexpected take on Fat Bottomed Girls in Killer Queen. (Photo: Daniel Rutland Manners) Eunice Kabeya and others do the robot to Another One Bites the Dust during Killer Queen. (Photo: Daniel Rutland Manners) And there’s Jared Schaedler’s sci-fi-inspired choreography for Another One Bites the Dust which not only seems to subtly riff Michael Jackson’s legendary Thriller music video but sees the dancers intermittently transform into robot-like creatures before the movement language evolves, again and again, so that the entire number feels like a choreographically complex journey across some imaginary universe.

The show is carefully constructed from the work of some of the country’s best choreographers, which ensures that the audience experiences variety and depth while the students are stretched.

Responsible for a lot of the choreography, Duane Alexander has crafted a fantastic rendition of Crazy Little Thing in which four distinct Freddie Mercury personas are gorgeously resurrected in the shape of four distinctive cameo performances – these guys sing, they dance and they have an inordinate amount of fun paying tribute to the rock star’s multitudinous stage personalities.

While their dancing is delectable, these youngsters also get to show off their singing talent. The arrangements of Queen’s songs – some known, some obscure – are unexpected and imaginative, and the vocals brilliant.

There’s an especially captivating all-boys rendition of Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy performed with such an easy touch, such good humour and a palpable human connection between the singers – you can’t h…