Golden-Globe-Award-winning box office smash Bohemian Rhapsody celebrates the life and career of Queen front man - and one of UWL’s most notable alumni - Freddie Mercury.

One of UWL’s lecturers worked behind the scenes on the film in a key role. London College of Music (LCM) vocal coach David Combes was a vocal coach for Rami Malek, who won a Golden Globe for best drama actor for his depiction of the late front man.

David said:

Working with Rami was great. I learned a lot from him about what you can achieve if you put heart and soul into a project. 

Rami is one of the hardest working men I've met, and his commitment to creating something really special meant he put 100% into his time with me, his dialect coach and his movement coach – we were all hugely impressed with his commitment.

David first got involved with the film when he was brought onto team by the musical director Steve Sidwell, an arranger and composer probably best known for his work on the a cappella Honda Choir advertising campaign and Grammy-Award-winning shows like Beautiful and We Will Rock You. 

The UWL academic was asked to join the crew to help Rami Malek emulate Freddie's unique and powerful voice. David said:

Rami naturally has a rich and resonant tone when he speaks, with a lot of natural rise and fall in pitch.

But when we first met he had quite a fragile relationship with his singing voice. I knew he had an instrument in there, but it was hidden. More than anything, he needed to rebuild a relationship with his singing voice that would allow him to use it as confidently and naturally in public as his speaking voice. That meant I had to find ways for him to start to sing, without it ever being 'singing'.

Freddie Mercury famously had a four-octave range. David helped Rami to prepare for the role vocally by tapping into is acting talent. 

The obvious route was to use what he was confident at: acting. We found a way into singing using a lot a primal sounds like yelling, complaining and calling to build his voice up, and crying, whimpering and whinging to extend his vocal range and open up those areas that felt least comfortable.

Asked about his favourite Queen song, David said:

That's an impossible question to answer, you just have to see the film to start clocking up the dozens of iconic hits they had... nope, I've tried but narrowing to down to one is too hard, I want them all (and I want them now).