Calling all fans of singing, Queen songs, cinemas, and singing Queen songs in cinemas, because you can now attend sing-along versions of the biopic Bohemian Rhapsody in UK cinemas.
Fans of the band – and the film – will be presented with onscreen lyrics, encouraging viewers to sing along and join in with the tracks as they appear in the film.
Who knows, if you’re lucky enough, Brian May and Roger Taylor might just catch wind of your incredible performance at one of these screenings and take you on tour with them. Stranger things have happened…
Cinema chains Cineworld, Vue, Showcase, and Everyman, among others, will be hosting the sing-along screenings, which will start on January 11, 2019. You can view the full list here.
You can watch the (technically non sing-along, though I’m not going to stop you) trailer for the film here:
In December 2018, it was revealed Bohemian Rhapsody – the song – is the most streamed track from the 20th Century. For clarity – the iconic listen wasn’t the most streamed in the 20th Century, but the most streamed song which was created in the 20th Century.
The six minute extravaganza was originally released on the band’s 1975 album A Night at the Opera, where it was criticised for being almost twice as long as songs typically played on the radio.
Despite this, the song quickly became a bona fide masterpiece, staying at the top of the charts for nine weeks after its initial release. And it is still one of the most recognisable and iconic songs ever, decades later.
According to Universal Music Group, the Mercury-written track has surpassed 1.6 billion streams globally, overtaking classics like Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit and Guns N’ Roses’ Sweet Child O’Mine.
On top of taking the crown for most streamed 20th Century song, Bohemian Rhapsody is now the most streamed classic rock tune of all time, too.
Aside from the great song, it seems a lot of people think the new film is pretty great, too.
Queen guitarist Brian May has even said Rami Malek – who plays Freddie Mercury in the film – should be nominated for an Oscar for his performance.
The guitarist told PA:
He’s incredible… without doubt he’ll be on the nominations list for an Oscar and well deserved as well. He inhabited Freddie to the point where we even started to think of him as Freddie. Really remarkable.
We’ve lived with this project for nine years and it’s incredible to see it doing so well.
While Malek himself said he ‘instinctually [wanted] to discover more’ about Mercury as he prepared for the gig.
He explained:
There’s just an eloquence and elegance to him that you can see when he’s on stage and then you can see where all that was birthed from.
I mean, not many artists are wearing an entire head-to-toe leather outfit, sipping a champagne flute and telling their audience to strip naked if they please. And he still comes off with this essence of royalty.
And now we can sing along with this royalty. What a world.
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Charlie Cocksedge is a journalist and sub-editor at UNILAD. He graduated from the University of Manchester with an MA in Creative Writing, where he learnt how to write in the third person, before getting his NCTJ. His work has also appeared in such places as The Guardian, PN Review and the bin.