Twelve years after it opened, the Queen and Ben Elton musical We Will Rock You is to bite the dust in the West End. The show, which has been seen by more than 6.5 million people at the cavernous Dominion theatre, will close on 31 May 2014. It will have run for a total of 4,600 performances, with an annual average of 600,000 tickets sold.

We Will Rock You is the longest-running show at the Dominion by some distance, beating Grease which ran at the theatre from 1993 to 1996. It has been performed around the world to an estimated total audience of more than 15 million.

When the jukebox musical opened in London on 14 May 2002, directed by Christopher Renshaw and with choreography by Arlene Phillips and a cast including Nigel Planer and Kerry Ellis, it was a critical bomb. "Freddie Mercury's music demands a lush, grandiose setting," wrote the Guardian's Brian Logan. "In Christopher Renshaw's production it is saddled with an expensively trashy video-game aesthetic, as a teenage rebel in the year 2302 seeks the Holy Axe and the Lost Riff in a world that has left real music behind."

The Telegraph's Charles Spencer considered it "a pathetic, adolescent piece of work" that "seems to go on for several hours longer than the complete Ring Cycle".

Nevertheless, it struck a chord with audiences and, nine years after opening, won an Olivier award in the only category voted for by the public.

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