What's Mick Jagger doing in WWRY? I'm sure he's not a listed cast member. Silly me - it's
Pop - the old bohemian who helps Galileo and Scaramouche find the "Living Rock" at Wembly and summon up the Hairy One's mighty lost axe.
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| Daniel Williams as Pop (Photographs by Peter Cook) |
Sticking
closely to the character, I went for the aging hippy look. A grungy old
denim waistcoat with really matted fur trim caught my eye in a local
charity shop - it looked really grubby - perfect. I sewed some orange native American style print cotton fabric to the back and one side panel and added brown suede fringing and feathers. Underneath is an oversize Aztec print t-shirt that I'd dyed a dirty denim blue.
Our Pop was played by Daniel Williams - who rather liked the black wig I'd bought from a fancy dress shop for another show. Although it was "rock star style" it did look rather hippyish when we added an Aztec headband. But he sure does look a bit "Jagger"ish in that first picture!
Did you know the iconic rock singer Meatloaf got his start in musical theatre? He was in the 1975 cult movie
The Rocky Horror Picture Show - not surprising when you hear the awesome, amazing
Bat out of Hell.........
Sorry I digress
. Our Meatloaf is much smaller, and a lot prettier. And she's a girl.
For those who haven't seen WWRY, the Bohemians are a bit of a surprise. After rejecting the globalsoft life, they reinvent themselves using old rock and pop legends as inspiration. However, as they are using scraps of lost information, they do get a bit mixed up. So Meatloaf, who likes to be called
Meat, is a girl.
I wasn't sure how Elena Jamieson, who played our Meat, would take the costume I had in mind for her, but I needn't have worried. She loved it.
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| Elena Jamieson as Meat (Photographs by Peter Cook) |
Her stunning top started life as a little black corset that had a defined curved front panel. I added lots and lots of metal studs to a pink piece of fabric and then sewed it to the front of the corset together with a bit of black cotton tape with silver eyelets down the middle. Wanting a layered look, I added a brilliant lime lycra bra and Elena wore a red lace one underneath - it looked awesome.
The frayed red denim shorts were another eBay find - I added a couple of darts to make them fit Elena better - and added an amazing leather belt - it was really heavy and sat perfectly on her hips. So, what else? Lots of backcombing of her hair and great festival dreadlocks. Pink and black wrapped arms with a single leather studded fingerless glove. And biker boots with laddered fishnet tights. Enough said.
The love of Meat's life is
Britney Spears - or
Brit. And you've guessed it, Brit is a bloke.
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| Joe Williams as Brit (Photographs by Peter Cook) |
Joe Williams, who played our Brit, didn't seem at all fazed that I was putting him in a skirt. I had great fun cutting and tearing an old tartan kilt - the wool was rather worn and ripped beautifully. I added some small "moth holes" as well as bigger tears - although I'm sure they could only be seen by the first few rows of the audience, I am a bit of a fanatic about detail! I also added loads of metal chains, old jewelry charms, buckles and kilt pins - the sort of "accessories" a bohemian would have scavenged from the old rubbish tips.
Brit likes his "bling" so I also gave him a peace sign medallion necklace and studded leather punk wrist and hand bands. I made his t-shirt by rough cutting a standard black tee into a ragged vest shape and ironing on an image I'd created using a computer graphic program.
See my blog post on the Ga-Ga kids for more on creating iron on motifs.
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| Bob the Builder |
Ok, so what about the rest of the Bohemians. Although I helped out a bit with some bits of pieces of clothing and I mended Madonna's boobies, they made their own costumes inspired by the characters they had created. And boy did they go to town.
Although there are a few long standing characters, WWRY productions constantly change bohemian characters to update the show with current favourite stars and to introduce new gags.
So basically you can pick who you like.
We had all the most well loved rock and pop stars of all times. The Spice Girls and Puff Daddy. Lady Ga-Ga and Charlotte Church. Jedward. Big Macca (Paul McCartney) and Cliff Richard. And many more. But of course we had the most iconic rock star of all. Bob. "And I'm Bob. Bob the poet. Bob the rebel. Bob the prophet. I am.... Bob the Builder"
I'll leave you with some more photos. See if you can guess who some of the characters are.
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| (Photographs by Peter Cook) |
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| (Photograph by Peter Cook) |
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| Bohemians in Crazy Little Thing Called Love (Photograph by Peter Cook) |
And that's all from We Will Rock You. I'll be back next year with a series of posts on Les Miserables costumes.
The
Old Button is more than happy for you to use these costume ideas as
inspiration for your own production.
Pinning through Pinterest is fine as long as you credit
The Old Button but please respect the copyright of the photos, and do
not reproduce in other forms without permission.
