Picture one of London's grandest venues with its stage ringed by 1,000 flickering candles, and a small quartet — three violinists and a double bass — playing Bohemian Rhapsody in the middle of it all. That's the formula behind Fever's Candlelight concert series, and on this particular night at Central Hall Westminster, it worked a treat.
The concept is simple but clever. Fever hunts down striking venues across its cities and stages classical reinterpretations of well-known pop and rock catalogues. The range is broad — everything from Leonard Cohen to Adele has had the candlelit treatment — so even people who would never buy a ticket to a traditional classical concert find something familiar on the programme.
The Queen and ABBA edition runs through fourteen songs split between the two bands. On the ABBA side there's Dancing Queen, SOS, Money Money Money, Voulez-Vous, Waterloo, Super Trouper, Mamma Mia and Gimme Gimme Gimme. Queen contributes Bohemian Rhapsody, I Want to Break Free, Killer Queen, Don't Stop Me Now, We Will Rock You and We Are the Champions. Stripped of vocals and reworked for strings, the material takes on a surprisingly emotional weight — the reviewer notes that Bohemian Rhapsody in particular landed on a different plane entirely, with the whole audience silently singing along.
It's not a solemn affair, either. For the finale, We Will Rock You, the crowd were invited to stamp and clap along, which tells you a lot about the atmosphere: relaxed, warm and thoroughly un-stuffy. The candlelight does a lot of the work — the reviewer's verdict is that the glow makes the whole thing feel genuinely magical, and that everyone should go.
For travellers, this is a nicely different evening out in London. Central Hall Westminster sits just off Parliament Square, minutes from Westminster Abbey and Big Ben, so you could pair a show with an afternoon of sightseeing and dinner nearby. The concerts run regularly and the programme rotates — if ABBA and Queen aren't your thing, check Fever's listings for tribute evenings covering other artists, film scores and more, in this venue and others across the city. Tickets are typically inexpensive compared to West End shows, and the runtime is short enough to leave the evening free for a nightcap.
Anyone who wants live music without the arena prices, classical-curious visitors, or fans of either band who fancy hearing their favourites dressed up in strings will find this an easy yes.
