Student died after up to 27 vodka shots
Ed Farmer THE initiation ceremony after which a student died included up to 27 vodka shots and being painted like cattle, an inquest heard yesterday.
Ed Farmer, 20, was one of 20 Newcastle University first years at the Agricultural Society night out in December 2016.
Starting the pub crawl at 7.15pm, they were urged to down about nine vodka trebles by second and third years in little over an hour.
At another bar they were given more vodka trebles before they went to a student house in Jesmond, Newcastle, where they were spray painted and their heads were shaved.
Ed later passed out at the house and died two days later of the symptoms of acute alcohol toxicity.
The inquest continues.
As the credits rolled last night at the London premiere of Bohemian Rhapsody, the story of Freddie Mercury and rock legends Queen, producer Graham King no doubt sighed with relief.
He would be the first to admit that it’s a kind of magic that the film made it to the big screen at all.
Graham, 56, has produced 40 movies and TV series, won an Oscar and worked with Martin Scorsese, Leonardo Dicaprio and Johnny Depp.
But nothing Graham has ever experienced in the film business came close to the traumas and setbacks he encountered during the 10 long years he spent on Bohemian Rhapsody.
First, there was the problem of getting the rights from Queen stars Brian May and Roger Taylor, who had doubts about the movie. Then comic Sacha Baron Cohen, originally tipped to play Mercury, got into a feud with Brian May.
The script had to be re-written more times than King can count and when filming was well under way, director Bryan Singer left amid allegations of sexual assault, which he denied.
King says: “Freddie Mercury has been throwing hurdles at me for 10 years and continues to do so. Every time we thought we were on the right track, something else would go wrong.”
The British-born producer, whose movies include The Departed, for which he won an Oscar, is talking in a Beverly Hills screening room after unveiling a 25-minute clip of Bohemian Rhapsody, which stars Rami Malek as Freddie Mercury.
King is relieved the film is ready for release today, but also anxious as he anticipates audience reaction.
He says: “We’ve made a film that’s got to please a lot of audience members and millions of Queen fans. We don’t hide from Freddie Mercury having HIV and getting AIDS.
“We don’t hide his sexuality, but every time we put
a piece of footage out there somebody says, ‘You’re not showing Freddie Mercury doing this or that’. “I think Rock Hudson and Freddie were the first two major stars to pass away from AIDS.
“We were never going to hide from that, but the question was how we were going to put it into the film without it becoming Philadelphia or without it becoming a movie about AIDS or about sexuality. He was one of the greatest performers of our time and with one of the greatest voices. “So that’s