Couple set to rock audience

14 June 2007

Audiences at the Norfolk premiere of the West End sell-out show We Will Rock You can expect a special connection between leading lady and man Scaramouche and Galileo.

They are a couple in real life and have just got engaged.

Eighteen-year-old talented singers and actors Lou Atkinson and Adam Wyer found love in the first month of their BTEC performing arts course at Great Yarmouth College nearly two years ago.

Inseparable since, the couple - who now share a home at Brundall - can't believe they will finish their college career with the biggest roles of their lives in their end-of-course production.

Both massive Queen fans, they auditioned against strong competition for the lead roles in the show to rock the Edwardian Hippodrome Circus in Great Yarmouth with favourite Queen hits later this month.

It is the biggest show Great Yarmouth College students have attempted and their hoping to pull in big audiences for the three-night run.

“We both really wanted the parts because they are such a challenge. We both love Queen and have got all the CDs and know all the songs,” said Adam, a former pupil of Great Yarmouth High School.

“Freddie Mercury had one of the highest voices and it is a challenge trying to sing like him but it's working well and now I definitely want to carry on singing in the future. I'm excited at people seeing what I am capable of”

“I really didn't think I stood a chance,' said Lou. “This is the first major part I have ever had and I am loving it and really excited about the shows.”

In the show, written by Ben Elton and Queen, Scaramouche and Galileo are outcasts who meet each other as the “odd ones out” in a society set in the future that refuses to accept originality, individuality or rock music.

The plot is weaved round versions of every favourite Queen song that will have the audience singing and clapping along.

“The characters realise they are really quite similar and click but there is a lot of arguments as they get to know each other,” said Adam.

The three-night run of We Will Rock You starts on June 21 and rehearsals have taken over the college's performing arts block, rocking all day every day to the familiar sounds of Don't Stop Me Now, Killer Queen, We are the Champions, Radio GaGa, Bohemian Rhapsody and every other Queen favourite.

Profits from the show - believed to be the first in the world to be performed “in the round” on a circular stage - will go to the Mercury Phoenix Trust in memory of Freddie Mercury and distributes money to HIV/AIDS charities in the UK and worldwide.

We will Rock You at London's Dominion has been a sell-out and has had its run extended another year.

The Great Yarmouth show is one of the first amateur performances in Britain since the rights were released earlier this year.

The show is on from June 21 and 23. For tickets contact the Hippodrome box office on 01493 844172.

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