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Evening Standard
Evening Standard
World
Lizzie Edmonds

Kinda magic: Brian May reunites boy with his lost guitar

A young guitar player was reunited with his lost instrument thanks to Queen rocker Brian May, a top West End star and the power of social media.

The music legend , 74 , launched an Instagram appeal after his friend, actress Mazz Murray, who plays Donna in the West End show Mamma Mia!, called on him to help reunite the instrument with its owner.

West End star Murray, 47, found a child’s guitar at Edgware station last weekend. She posted a picture of the lost Alhambra guitar on her Instagram and enlisted the help of the Queen star whom she knows from when she starred in We Will Rock You, the musical about the band.

(Greg Allen/Invision/AP)

“Someone has lost this. I found this guitar outside Edgware Tube station. Some poor kid getting royally b******** right now. Let’s try reunite them. @brianmayfor - real,” she wrote. May posted: “Did anyone out there lose an acoustic guitar — in a case like this — outside Edgware station? What was in the case as well as the guitar?”

The owner was traced and eight-year old Emerson Liu Bancroft from Borehamwood was reunited with his guitar. The young musician met Murray, who brings the character played by Meryl Streep to life on the stage, at the Novello Theatre — with May watching on a video call — to give him back his guitar.

The guitar was reunited with its owner, Murray said, thanks to two things. The first being the specific make of the instrument as an Alhambra is quite rare and only sold in one shop in London. The second were the specific items found in the pockets of the guitar case which Emmerson identified — Harry Potter and Star Wars sheet music.

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