and this can never be as real or as convincing.

We see, in the rare glimpses of Freddie's private life, a man surrounded by calmness. His koi pond is a place for meditation, as are the peace and calmness of his beautiful gardens. He loved the beauty and tranquility of traditional Japan. He surrounded himself with beautiful objects. All of this show a person trying to be at peace with himself; a person who loves beauty and quietude: totally alien to the loud partying, drinking outrageous stage man.

Behind the high walls of his house was another world and perhaps it is there that he could be himself and be safe from the creature of his own creation, yet is it probably further back, to the streets of Zanzibar that we need to go to find the real Freddie before the dreams of being a star, of being an immortal first surfaced.

None of this is to say that Freddie did not accept his creation, nor that he wasn't happy with it, yet there must always be the understanding that the singer of songs is not necessarily the liver of life and that both existed in the one