It's all in the Staging

One area of Freddie's music that is often overlooked is that of his dramatic stagecraft. Freddie shared the peculiar form of genius with only a few other rockers of his time - perhaps only Mick Jagger of the Roling Stones comes even close to Freddie's command of the stage. Much has been said of him 'gesturing' 'preeing like a peacock' (having kept peafowl I can tell you that a) they don't preen and b) they are really loud and annoying - both totally unlike Freddie). He would stride up and down the stage, swinging his half-microphone stand, gesticulating, wearing outlandish clothes, leap, cavort, dance and sing.

Yet this should be looked at in terms of what it produced in the context of a show. Makeup for a stage performance is entirely different to makeup for a night on the town (and I used to do stage makeup, lighting, and costume design - believe me on this): everything has to be bigger, bolder and designed to be seen from a long way away. This is just on a stage with a few hundred or a thousand viewers. Costumes have to be unreal to be real. One of the greatest quotes

about the movie making business was (to paraphrase) 'We can't make it real because reality looks fake. We have to make it MORE than real, Greater then normal in order for it to look real.'

Our cowboys have to be bigger then reality, our villains have to be nastier, our heroes have to be more heroic, and our stars have to shine brighter. Freddie was an instinctive performer, a character actor and a designer with an eye for makeup, for lighting and for stage presence. It was his particular genius, a genius shared in some ways by Chaplin, Lon Chaney and John Hurt, that he could go out there dressed in whatever and perform and be believed. There was a rock-hard certainty that it was Freddie on the stage and that everything was fine because of it.

The difference between the excellent performance of Mick Jagger and the genius of Freddie Mercury was one of scale. Mick could hold the attention of the audience on the stage in the hall or audotorium. Freddie could hold the audience in a stadium. Each and every person would respond and believe: even those who were not