We Will Rock You’s Galileo wows the Voice judges
On Saturday 38-year-old West End stage actor and former star of We Will Rock You, Ricardo Afonso, passed the blind auditions on the reality show The Voice to become part of team Danny.
Ricardo moved to the UK from his home in sunny Portugal in 2005, and despite never having received any formal vocal or dance training he landed the role of Galileo in the hit musical We Will Rock You at the Dominion theatre.
Watching The Voice last year made him want to pick up his guitar and start songwriting again, something he hadn’t done in 10 years. Ricardo sang the Otis Redding song Hard to Handle to impress judges Tom Jones and The Script’s Danny O’Donoghue. Ricardo chose to be coached by Danny and no goes forward to the next stage of the competition.
Ricardo Afonso former We Will Rock You star
With Britain’s Got Talent now leading the Saturday night TV ratings for ITV, and The Voice being the BBC’s flagship for reality shows, it opens up the debate once more whether reality T.V. talent shows are good or bad for the entertainment industry.
On one hand the casting of Andrew Lloyd-Webber’s musicals via televised shows certainly sparked an interest in the West End theatre but on the other hand are the competitors truly prepared for life on London’s stage?
The contestants from the BBC shows have proved more able than their counterparts from ITV and have enjoyed more longevity as a result.
However, Queen guitarist and a producer of one of the West End’s long-running blockbuster musicals has attacked reality TV casting and ruled out ever “dumbing down” in such a way. Brian May, co-producer and musical supervisor on We Will Rock You, the musical which features 31 of Queen’s greatest hits, revealed that We Will Rock You had been approached about doing a similar TV programme for their musical, which is now in its 11th record-breaking year at the Dominion Theatre in London.
“We were asked,” said Brian, writer of many of Queen’s biggest hits. “But we said no. We all feel that TV auditioning would be contrary to the spirit of our show. It’s actually an appalling lowering of standards, this whole TV-dominated culture. I promise you will never find us on some panel bullying and ridiculing young performers, I personally detest that kind of thing, and I think it’s a shame that the public puts up with it.”
Programmes like Any Dream Will Do, Grease Is the Word and How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?, are unhelpful and unhealthy for both the performers and the productions involved, according to May. “The idea that you can just pull people in off the streets to audition in public, and cast your show from this process, is a huge insult to all those young men and women who have devoted their whole lives to developing their talents, preparing for performing in a live stage show eight shows a week. How could you possibly expect to get the best performers this way? No self-respecting professional actor or actress would lower themselves to go in for this kind of humiliation. The best actors and singers will stay away.”
Famously though, Phantom of the Opera understudy, Lee Mead, went on to win the part of Joseph in Andrew Lloyd-Webber’s show Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at the Adelphi theatre in London.
We Will Rock You opened in 2002 to mixed reviews and some sniping criticism but has defied those critics by going on to become a major West End hit, and subsequently embarking on both national and international tours whilst still packing audiences in at the Dominion theatre. We Will Rock You has now been seen by millions worldwide and is shortly embarking on both a stadium tour and a U.S. tour.
“When you see We Will Rock You, you are watching performers who have dedicated their whole lives to the pursuit of excellence. Auditioned with dignity in private, encouraged to find their own way of playing the parts, and very often rising to the leading roles within our company,” says May. “This is the kind of theatre you are supporting when you buy a ticket for We Will Rock You. You are striking a blow against the dumbing down of live theatre.”
Set 300 years in the future, but with the plethora of recent reality shows on T.V. it could in fact apply to today. We Will Rock You depicts the world in which globalisation has meant the death of real music with musical instruments banned and computer generated cyber stars producing music to download. The rebel Bohemians, harking back to the Golden Age of rock are plotting to overthrow the regime. An unlikely young hero emerges with his ‘goth’ girlfriend to challenge the tyrannical Killer Queen and begins a search for the legendary place of living rock.
The story is written by comedian Ben Elton and features over 30 of Queen’s greatest hits including “Bohemian Rhapsody”, “Crazy Little Thing Called Love”, “Under Pressure”, “Radio Gaga” and, of course, “We Will Rock You”.
Buy tickets for We Will Rock You in London.
