If Toby Francis's life could be summed up in a single Queen song this week, it would definitely be the Mercury/Bowie collaboration, Under Pressure.

The Canberra-raised actor and singer has the lead role in stadium rock musical We Will Rock You, which opens at AIS Arena this week to a potential audience of 15,000 Canberrans over four nights.

And they're not just any old Canberrans. The mammoth musical, written by British comedian Ben Elton and featuring a soundtrack of the rock group's most iconic songs, generally draws the most hardcore of Queen fans.

It's a level of scrutiny Francis, 30, will relish.

"There's a lot of pressure but I think there might be something wrong with me because I love it," he laughs.

"It's high stakes and if you're not feeling the pressure, then you're not stepping up far enough."

Francis plays Gallileo in the show; a Freddie Mercury incarnate living 300 years in the future. It's a music-less, Orwellian style future where instruments are banned and self expression through music is non-existent.

Gallileo is a dreamer and a master lyricist, and manages to find a small group of bohemians who share his vision of overthrowing Killer Queen (played by fellow Canberran Queenie van de Zandt). The rebellious troupe - which happens to include a convenient love interest for Gallileo, Scaramouche (are you picking a theme here?) - dream of returning music and self-expression to the world.

Francis is on stage for "about 90 per cent of the show" stretching his vocal ability to its absolute limit through iconic Queen songs like I Want to Break Free, Who Wants to Live Forever and Love of My Life.

"Freddie [Mercury] was one of the greatest vocalists of all time, one of the best singers who ever lived, so you want to honour that and you want to sing the phrases and the melodies people know," Francis says.

"But also, you don't want people to think you're trying to emulate him or to be him, because everyone has their own colouring and timbre.

"So it's finding the balance between what you do with a song and what Freddie did, and that's really exciting to me."

We Will Rock You is the first time Francis has performed in musical theatre in Canberra for more than 10 years. After a truly "Canberra" upbringing starring in musicals for various local production companies, including Phoenix Players, he moved to Sydney in 2008 to study musical theatre at the Australian Institute of Music.

He's had "ups and downs" since that move 10 years ago, he says, but 2018 has been "phenomenal" with a starring role as Charlie in Michael Cassel's national production of Kinky Boots, as well as starring in and producing High Fidelity at Sydney's Hayes Theatre.

We Will Rock You director Kelda McManus says when the PeeWee Productions team sat down a year ago to "think long and hard" about who actually had the talent to pull off the lead roles in a local version of We Will Rock You, Francis was always front of mind.

McManus and Francis met in 1998; she was directing Bye Bye Birdie for Phoenix Players and he was a 10-year-old cast member.

"He was spot on even then, his characterisation was fantastic," McManus recalls.

"I've watched him grow up, I remember seeing him in Miss Saigon in Sydney and thinking, 'Oh you're all grown up'.

"The role needs to have this boyish charm but it also needs to have phenomenal vocal capability to sing the songs, and Toby has both.

"He was my number one pick at the beginning and I'm so excited the company said, 'We agree'."

McManus says she was "gobsmacked" when she first saw We Will Rock You on London's West End (it played at the Dominion Theatre for more than 10 years).

The seasoned director, who's worked on shows for Canberra Philharmonic, Queanbeyan Players and Supa Productions over two decades, dreamed of one day directing the hilarious musical with the Queen soundtrack.

"I sat there going, 'Oh my God this is amazing, this is incredible'," she says of first seeing We Will Rock You.

"And then reality hit me and I was like, 'Oh come on! It's Queen's music! You're going to need exceptionally amazing guitarists and you're going to need people who can really, really sing'."

Dreams do come true. In 2017, McManus was approached by PeeWee Productions to direct We Will Rock You. She found everything she needed for what she guarantees will be an incredible four nights at AIS Arena.

For Francis, performing for the home town he loves is the perfect ending to an amazing year.

"I performed at AIS Arena with the TEN Tenors - and that was an incredible experience - but to do a musical and a big rock show is something else entirely," he says.

"It feels like a homecoming."