Bailey Landeg takes up the role of Freddy in School of Rock

Bailey Landeg will star as Freddy in Lloyd Webber’s Melbourne production of School of Rock, leaving Launceston to relocate across the Bass Strait for six months with mum Kristen Landeg.

“Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber said ‘these kids are true quadruple threats’ in his video announcement,” Mrs Landeg said.

After sending off an acting and drumming video earlier this year Bailey was invited to a face-to-face audition in Melbourne, which then led to several call backs.

“Then a few weeks ago we got an email saying I’d got in,” Bailey said.

The production has been triple cast, so Bailey is one of 36 actors and musicians who will perform up to four times each week.

“There’s the four kids who each play musical instruments – drummer, guitarist, bass player, keyboardist – and a couple of back up singers, one kid is security and one is the costume designer,” Mrs Landeg said.

“The music is awesome. There’s a couple of songs from the movie and Andrew Lloyd Webber wrote a lot of new ones.”

While Bailey had been dancing for years and dabbled in drama when he was younger, it was his drumming that stood out, which his musician father, Liam Landeg, said was self taught.

“We worked on it a little bit, but he just goes and does his thing,” Mr Landeg said.

“I might wander up there and tell him to do something different and he works on it, but he is pretty much self taught,” he said.

Bailey and his mum will be in Melbourne in time for his first rehearsal in early September.

“We’ll try and come home when we can, but there’s not a great deal of room in the schedule to do that,” Mrs Landeg said.

This means Bailey will miss finishing grade 6 at Trevallyn Primary School, but promises to be back to join friends at Riverside High School.

“There’s lots of cool stuff Bailey will miss out on at the end of the year, but it’s such an awesome opportunity. It’s once in a lifetime,” she said.

While this is an opportunity of a lifetime, Bailey is hoping it will lead to bigger things in entertainment.

“It will get my name out there, but maybe movies or drumming,” he said.