Martin Johnston’s Neil Kinnock comes out of it best with a dignified song, Well All Right, based on the then-leader’s hubristic 1992 conference speech. Their arch, clownish performances are the most subtle ones on show.Ĭherie Blair, Gordon Brown, John Prescott and Robin Cook are just punchline punchbags with vulgar characteristics and outrageous accents. Charlie Baker’s Blair is a rictus-grinning, idiot Faust, bereft of ideas or self-doubt, boosted up the greasy pole of politics by privilege and by Howard Samuels’s Mephistophelean Peter Mandelson. Or maybe that’s just me.Īnyway, in Peter Rowe’s production, everyone wears ill-fitting New Labour suits and red ties, and props are wheeled on as in a magic show. Given how torrid and debased our current politics are, Blair’s international crimes now seem as distant as Anthony Eden’s. Playwright Chris Bush recently pointed out on Twitter that her own musical about Blair was one of three planned in 2007, when events were fresher. Tony Blair undoubtedly deserves scrutiny and opprobrium – and I say this as a lifelong Labour voter – but the timing of this show feels weird. The two previously collaborated on the notoriously short-lived X Factor musical I Can’t Sing!
Without Hill’s name attached as writer – the heavy lifting of the music and lyrics were handled by his long-term collaborator Steve Brown – I doubt it would have found a stage-slot in London, let alone a celeb-stuffed crowd like last night’s.
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It’s also wilfully slapdash full of mugging, bovine hoofing and terrible wigs: the sort of thing you’d expect from a precocious student drama group.
It features one absolute belter of a song, and a ton of bad-taste gags about Princess Diana’s death, 9/11 and the Iraq War. Harry Hill’s musical spoof about Britain’s most successful – and most reviled – Labour PM is packed with witty lyrics.
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