New Theatre, Sunday 2nd December 2018

Like Julius Caesar and his entourage, Gary Mullen and The Works came to the New Theatre on a one-night stand, saw a huge crowd awaiting them and conquered them. As a non-rock music fan but with a fair idea of the Queen back catalogue (and having recently seen Bohemian Rhapsody) I was bowled over – no, flattened – by the volume and spectacle and sheer force of it. The house lights dimmed, then there was a swelling burst of portentous music, fit for the arrival of Alexander the Great at the gates of Babylon or Donald Trump arriving at the clubhouse of one of his golf courses.

Then on they came, first drummer Jon Halliwell sneaking in at the back in twilight, then bass Billy Moffatt and keyboards player Malcolm Gentles, then Davie Brockett on guitar (hair Brian May-style – or even Louis XIV) and then, the lights flashing scarlet, emerald, ultramarine and mauve came the man himself, caught in two swivelling floodlights: all in white, manicured moustache, lithe, long-legged body, black hair slicked back – it was Freddie Mercury himself, risen Lazarus-like from the grave, summoned by the clarion-call of the music.

Then they were away, pounding out the songs while the light and colour flashed and pulsed and the brass bar in front of me vibrated. Gary was straight into his routine with Another One Bites the Dust , every move no doubt honed in front of the mirror and from long practice (he's been hard at this for donkeys' years). Prancing like a colt faced by a filly on heat, twitching his right calf convulsively, doing the half-splits, kicking his heels up behind him, eating up the playing space in long strides, he was everywhere at once with his stick mike, using it like an épée, a back scratcher, a fly swat, a neck-stretcher and a surrogate penis.

The voice to my Queen-inexpert ears sounded just right, with a great range, and once he held a tenor top C for a very long time, as well as getting down to a deep growl. Perhaps he wasn't wholly at home on the ballad Love of My Life, voice a little harsh and volume too inflated for the song, but his audience patter was perfectly judged between in-rôle bombast – blowing provocatively pouting kisses left and right, deriding the non-dancers, threatening to go home early – and appreciation of his audience, leaping down off stage and wading into the adoring folk at the front who (I have it on the authority of one of them) follow him around the country from gig to gig.

Just two caveats: it was a pity there was never a single mention of Freddie himself, and on Bohemian Rhapsody the piano work was left to the keyboards rather than Gary, and I could have done with the authentic electric piano sound rather than the synthetic, slightly thin keyboard approximation.

We rocked to the big anthems, swaying madly, our hands above our heads, telling ourselves We are the Champions – and believing it - and we marvelled at Davie Brockett's astonishing guitar work, playing at breakneck speed, his fingers swooping up and down the frets faster then your eyes could follow. Gary covered every inch of the stage, generous too in allowing the band their collective and individual limelight, sweating profusely, giving every last ounce of himself to the performance, and somehow saving something for the late-on masterpiece Radio Ga Ga.

A triumph. We all flooded out in a state of dazzlement and once outside, the energy overload in me made me want to sprint all the way to Zanzibar!