‘Freddie would have loved it’: Queen wow at Last Night of the Proms

Rock band Queen were the star guests at the Last Night of the Proms, giving their first ever symphonic performance of their rock operetta, Bohemian Rhapsody.

Sir Brian May and Roger Taylor joined the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the BBC Symphony Chorus to bring their scaramouches and fandangos to the Royal Albert Hall, as the song celebrated its 50th anniversary.

Queen singer Freddie Mercury, who died in 1991, “would have loved to be here”, Sir Brian told BBC News. “He’d have been on that stage, lapping it up.”

Asked what the flamboyant star would have worn, his bandmate replied: “I think it would be formal. He wouldn’t do the short shorts or the leotard. He’d be in tails, very elegant.”

Tenor Sam Oladeinde amply filled Mercury’s high-top sneakers for Saturday’s performance while the chorus was bolstered by the National Youth Choir, the BBC Singers and soprano Louise Alder for the famous “Bismillah!” section.

Sir Brian momentarily missed his cue on the closing guitar solo but the climax – a ghostly recording of Mercury singing “any way the wind blows” followed by Roger Taylor striking Britain’s largest gong – was met with a massive roar of approval.

Stuart Morley’s all-new orchestral arrangement gave Bohemian Rhapsody a “fresh grandeur”, said chorister Gareth Malone, who watched the performance.

“This is a big room to fill, and it filled it.”

Speaking backstage, Sir Brian called the performance “very emotional”.

“A little too emotional for me,” he added. “I missed a couple of things which I wish would have loved to get better. But the overall feeling was great.”

The Last Night marked the culmination of eight weeks of concerts across the country, from Bradford and Bristol to Gateshead and Belfast.

The finale, at London’s Royal Albert Hall, also starred comedian Bill Bailey, who played Leroy Anderson’s 1950 classic The Typewriter on… well, a typewriter.

A comedic ode to office life, it features just two keys of the machine (for clarity and to avoid jamming, apparently) as well as the “ding” of the carriage return at the end of each phrase.

Known to many as the theme song to BBC Radio 4’s The News Quiz, it was a quirky highlight that Bailey dedicated to his late mother.

“I just wish my mum was around for her to see it,” he said ahead of the show.

“I think that would be just a wonderful moment – to see those early times when she inspired me to listen to music, and then there I am at the Proms.”

Bailey was welcomed on stage by audience members, who chanted a greeting referencing “Room 101” – although their meaning was not immediately clear.

The Last Night was led for the first time by Hong Kong-born conductor Elim Chan, who acknowledged her debut by hanging a learner’s plate from her podium.

But she was a confident, charismatic leader, who curated the concert around themes of childhood.

The 38-year-old explained that she had been inspired to take up the baton after watching Mickey Mouse conducting the constellation of stars in Walt Disney’s animated classic Fantasia.

Accordingly, she included The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, which scored that scene, as part of Saturday’s programme.

“Little girl Elim is not staying in the dressing room,” she told BBC Two before the performance.

“She’s coming on the stage with me, and I’ll give her a little pat on the back.”

British trumpeter Alison Balsom also looked back to her youth, as she gave her retirement performance at the age of 46.

She bowed out of her professional career with Hummel’s Trumpet Concerto in E flat major, which she first heard at the Barbican as a young girl.

It was an emotional performance, with Balsom producing a beautifully rounded tone during the slower, languorous movements before switching into high gear for the dazzling pyrotechnics of the closing Rondo.

“It feels like a wonderful finale to be able to play this piece I’ve lived with all my musical life,” she said.

“I can’t say how lucky I am to have had music in my life, because it’s enriched me as a human being.”

As she ended her performance, Balsom was showered with roses from an appreciative audience.

Alder was the night’s star soprano, promising “an uplifting evening” as an antidote to global political turmoil.

She transported audiences to Edwardian London with a cheeky medley of songs from My Fair Lady, and scaled the heights with her rendition of Vilja Song – the nostalgic showpiece of Franz Lehár’s operetta The Merry Widow.

“I admire any soprano who has a huge voice but can do internalised, soft singing like that,” observed BBC Radio 3’s Georgia Mann.

“That is the mark of true class.”

The singer embraced the Last Night’s party atmosphere, adopting a cockney accent and flower-sellers costume for Wouldn’t It Be Loverly, and sporting a spectacular union flag ballgown for Rule, Britannia!

The concert ended with the traditional programme of sea shanties and patriotic songs like Jerusalem and Land of Hope and Glory – as the audience waved flags, set off party poppers and waved stuffed toys.

Bill Bailey reappeared at the end of the concert, playing Auld Lang Syne on the Royal Albert Hall’s famous “voice of Jupiter” organ – but not before bashing out an impromptu version of Europe’s rock classic The Final Countdown.

It gave the season a suitably celebratory and idiosyncratic climax.

This year’s season has totalled 86 concerts featuring everyone from jazz singer Samara Joy to one-handed pianist, Nicholas McCarthy.

Highlights included the Vienna Philharmonic’s superlative performance of Bruckner’s Symphony No 9, and star conductor Klaus Mäkelä, who delivered an astonishingly emotional version of Gustav Mahler’s Fifth Symphony with the Netherlands’ Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra.

There was also a Prom dedicated to the music of The Traitors; another featuring the music of Psycho composer Bernard Herrmann; and crossover concert with pop star Jade Thirlwall and guitar virtuoso St Vincent.

Almost 290,000 tickets were sold across the season and and millions more tuned into coverage across BBC Radio 3, BBC Sounds and BBC Television.

The festival will return on 17 July 2026, for its 131st season.

• Modest Mussorgsky – A Night on the Bare Mountain
• Johann Nepomuk Hummel – Trumpet Concerto in E flat major
• Lucy Walker – Today
• Arthur Benjamin – ‘Storm Clouds’ Cantata
• Charles-François Gounod – Faust: ‘O Dieu! que de bijoux … Ah! je ris de me voir’ (Jewel Song)
• Franz Lehár – The Merry Widow: Es lebt’ eine Vilja (Vilja Song)
• Camille Pépin – Fireworks (world premiere)
• Paul Dukas – The Sorcerer’s Apprentice

Interval

• Freddie Mercury/Queen, arr. Stuart Morley – Bohemian Rhapsody
• Dmitry Shostakovich – Festive Overture
• Lerner/Loewe, arr. Paul Campbell – My Fair Lady medley f
• Leonard Bernstein, arr. Simon Wright – Prelude, Fugue and Riffs
• Leroy Anderson – The Typewriter
• Rachel Portman – The Gathering Tree (world premiere)
• Trad., arr. Henry Wood – Fantasia on British Sea-Songs
• Thomas Arne, arr. Malcolm Sargent – Rule, Britannia!
• Edward Elgar – Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1 (Land of Hope and Glory)
• Hubert Parry, orch. Edward Elgar – Jerusalem
• arr. Benjamin Britten – The National Anthem
• Trad., arr. Paul Campbell – Auld lang syne