Queen musical resonates with old hits — and a surprisingly relevant dystopian future

Twenty-eight years after Freddie Mercury’s death, Queen is arguably as popular as ever.

A year ago, the Academy Award-winning biopic “Bohemian Rhapsody” ignited renewed interest in the band and its music. The movie soundtrack gave the group its highest chart position in 38 years and helped bump Queen’s “Greatest Hits” from No. 194 to No. 9. They ranked No. 1 and 2 in rock album sales for the first part of 2019, and the surviving members launched a successful tour with Adam Lambert.

This isn’t the first time Queen has recaptured the cultural zeitgeist. Back in 1992, the movie “Wayne’s World” introduced “Bohemian Rhapsody” to a new generation in the wake of Mercury’s death, and in 2002, UK comedy writer Ben Elton (“The Young Ones,” Black Adder”) penned a futuristic jukebox musical around Queen’s biggest hits.

“We Will Rock You” debuted in London’s West End in 2002, going on to tours and residencies all over the world.

With the global success of “Bohemian Rhapsody,” reviving “We Will Rock You” in North America and the UK seemed obvious. The new Canadian-helmed production makes its way to Ovens Auditorium on Wednesday night.

“That was the spark that drove the producers to start booking things,” says actor Brian Christensen, who plays Brit. “We have a lot of people coming out that maybe grew up with Queen and (until recently) it’s been less present in their mind — and some younger people that weren’t alive when Queen was in their hey-day that got to know them through the movie. They’re such a ubiquitous band, a lot of people know a song, but didn’t realize it is a Queen song. They just grew up with it.”

For his part, Christensen discovered Queen through his older siblings during the age of Napster.

“The first CD I burned off of songs from Napster had the ‘We Will Rock/We Are the Champions’ track. They were one track for me. I listened to those tunes a lot,” says Christensen, an Edmonton musician when he’s not on the road. “I was always tangentially aware of them, but hadn’t contextualized how many songs they had that were No. 1 hits, and how diverse their music is.”

In the musical — set in a Orwellian future where conformity is king and musical instruments are outlawed — Christensen plays a rebel scrounging for parts to make instruments. He spurs main character Galileo to fulfill his destiny. With its updated cultural references and technology and a controlling political system, “We Will Rock You” is surprisingly more relevant than when it was written almost 20 years ago.

“It has a lot of currency maybe the writers wouldn’t have expected,” says Christensen, who played Sonny in the less timely, less culturally resonant “Xanadu.” “We would discuss it during rehearsals. A scene would come up that was written in 2002. We’d pause and look at the scene as a group and ‘That just happened last week.’ It’s translated in a frightening way. When Ben Elton wrote this, he wrote it as a silly musical with a great excuse to put Queen songs on stage, but he was also writing something loosely based on ‘1984.’”

Despite it’s increasingly relevant political statement, at its heart “We Will Rock You” is a celebration of Queen’s theatrical and wholly original approach to rock n’ roll.

“Freddie Mercury didn’t want to be pigeonholed,” says Christensen, noting a musically minimal anthem like the title song, straight-ahead rockers “Fat Bottom Girls” and “We are the Champions,” the Elvis-style “Crazy Little Thing Called Love,” and the four-part arrangement of “Bohemian Rhapsody.”

“It’s such a music-heavy show,” he continues. “We have people from theater backgrounds and acting programs, but we have a fair number that are primarily as musicians that were involved in theater but didn’t necessarily study it. We have a really strong vocal ensemble, which is good for a show like this where it’s all Queen songs and you want to put as many on stage as possible.”

Even less-popular tracks like the theme to 1981’s “Flash Gordon” receive a nod.

“The writers find every opportunity, whether we’re doing the whole song or not, to get every Queen hit in.”

‘We Will Rock You’

When: 8 p.m. Wednesday.

Where: Ovens Auditorium, 2700 E. Independence Blvd.

Tickets: $39.50-$114.

Details: 800-745-3000; www.ticketmaster.com.