Cripes! I’m Prime Minister was performed at the Canal Café Theatre, London.
Should this satirical political musical, which pokes fun but also has a sneaky love affair with Boris ‘Kapow’ Johnson, make it to a West End venue, which is the ultimate aim? A mass ride-out by ticket holders on blue Barclays bikes could perhaps create the perfect ambience at any premiere.
Apparently, the cast and crew at Hearty Productions had just two weeks to fine tune things for this two-night run at the Canal Café Theatre so all involved deserve praise for creating something as watchable in such a short time. Not least the clearly multi-talented and multi-tasking (or maybe just short staffed) Gabriella Burnel who is credited not just with the show’s lyrics, but also collaborating on both the book and music.
Set in a fictional college in the town of Win Win, Boris and his class-conscious classmates – including Millipede, Camarooned, Forage, Dreggs and Poshbourne – find themselves competing to be head boy, aka Prime Minister, under the watchful eye of headmaster, Dr Jez Axman, played by the very versatile Ian Sanderson, a man clearly not adverse to a bit of anarchy.
The posh school setting is a nice twist, but the emphasis on superior academia wears a little thin after a while – there’s only so much lampooned Latin you can take on a night out. Like every time the real BoJo appears on television, you’re never quite sure what to expect and certainly the quality of material – both songs and script – varies hugely during the hour.
It’s a cliché that I’m sure producers are tired of hearing, but even fringe shows need an attention-grabbing opening – and the first few scenes just don’t cut the creative mustard. Thankfully, the eagerly anticipated entrance of blonde bombshell Boris, on a tiny bicycle and sporting a not so tiny, comically padded-out waist gives the show the lift it needs, and suddenly this musical is up and running.
Chris Fairall plays the eccentric, ambitious and lady-loving, gaff-prone ‘Honey Monster’ with some aplomb, and there is splendid, sassy support from Helena Payne (Pippa Posterior) and Emily Hardy (Hilarity Clinton). There’s more than a few really fun songs packed with witty lyrics here, not least ‘King Size Ambition’, a Boris theme tune if ever there was one; ‘Glass Ceiling Shatterer’, performed brilliantly by Hardy as Ms Clinton; and a really nice cameo, ‘Totally Socially Awkward’, by the person you’ll probably always find in the kitchen at political parties, (Ed) Millipede, aka the excellent Hamish Colville. Add to that the feisty ‘Cannabis Man’, sung with rebellious raucousness by the character Brandy Wandy (Sanderson again).
This is clearly a work very much in progress – and it needs a lot of creative elbow grease before a move to the West End could even be contemplated, but there’s tons of potential here to explore.
“If we were to say there are five stages in the process, I’d say we are at stage two out of five,” Burnel admits to Musical Theatre Review. “We have lots of work to do, but would hope to have a brilliant and complete show by May 2015 in time for the General Election,” she adds. In the meantime there’s the prospect of seeing Boris Johnson going walkabout in exotic Uxbridge as its prospective Conservative MP – from Oxbridge to Uxbridge, that’s a whole musical in itself.
Derek Smith
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