As brand new movie Bohemian Rhapsody - which chronicles the story of the British supergroup over three decades - hits screens globally and across our suburbs, a cast of 30 is warming up for arena show We Will Rock You.

Written by British comedian Ben Elton and featuring a soundtrack of Queen's most iconic songs, the rock musical opens on Wednesday night for the first time ever in the ACT.

The cast is a mix of homegrown and national talent, with former Hawker College student Toby Francis in the lead role of Gallileo and Sydney's Erin Clare playing his love interest, Scaramouche. (There's a reason those names sound familiar.)

But don't come expecting to see the full history of Queen played out on stage, Clare says, "it's more like Mamamia, where you have an actual storyline but it's played out through the songs of a particular band".

We Will Rock You is set 300 years in the future, in a vaguely Orwellian world controlled by Globalsoft Corporation. Music is dead, instruments are forbidden and computer-generated tunes are the only form of musical enjoyment. Enter a group of bohemian musicians - including Gallileo and Scaramouche - who of course plan to overturn the ruler of the world (aptly named Killer Queen) and bring music back to the people.

Erin Clare's individual performances on stage make for a formidable list- from Under Pressure and Best Friend to Hammer to Fall and Bohemian Rhapsody.

"My first number is Somebody to Love and the degree of difficulty is huge," Clare admits.

"Usually in a musical you get to warm up with a few numbers but for me, it's zero to 100."

Clare remembers the first time she ever heard a Queen song; it was Fat Bottomed Girls in the car with a friend at age 12.

"My best friend's kookie parents were playing it and all I thought was, what is this?" she recalls.

"I was absolutely thrilled - and it probably inspired me to do squats."

It was the theatricality and the "glamour" of the song that "totally got me" she says; and quotes the exact same qualities as the reasons people globally are still so in love with Queen's music.

"[The music] wasn't buying into the conventions of anything else that was happening at the time," Clare says.

"They did Crazy Little Thing Called Love to try and break into the American market but where else is there another Bohemian Rhapsody? Where is there another song on the charts with a 12-part harmony?

"If you're that original, you're never going to go out of style."

We Will Rock You, November 7-10, AIS Arena. Tickets from Ticketek.