Jack Whittle and Howard Samuels in Tony! The Tony Blair Rock Opera at the Leicester Square Theatre, London and Touring. Picture: Mark Senior
Tony! The Tony Blair Rock Opera continues at the Leicester Square Theatre, London until 21 May 2023. The tour runs from 25 May to 14 October 2023.
Star rating: three stars ★ ★ ★ ✩ ✩
It is now over 25 years since New Labour came into power, telling us via the adoption of D:Ream’s pop classic that ‘Things Can Only Get Better’. That initial euphoria was due in part to something the Labour Party had not had for some considerable time: a charismatic, upper middle class leader.
In Steve Brown and Harry Hill’s comedy musical (directed by Peter Rowe), which debuted at the Park Theatre last year, Tony Blair is given the sort of treatment that early career Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber gave to Evita and Jesus, except funnier.
Tony! The Tony Blair Rock Musical sees Jack Whittle take on the mantle of Anthony Charles Lynton Blair, presented here as a dumb Scotsman who talks in RP, and who has no interest in politics until manoeuvred into position by Scouse firebrand Cherie (Tori Burgess). Whittle’s slightly bug-eyed rictus grin is an ideal caricature for the role; it’s certainly a cleverer pitch than the concept of a man coming to power thanks to a Lady Macbeth figure, a cliché which adds nothing.
Indeed, as Act I blasts through Blair’s history up to the death of Princess Diana, the lead character is curiously passive in his own story. His entire career, it is suggested, is moulded by his wife and by Peter Mandelson. The latter role is played with glee by Howard Samuels, although it is the sort of impression where one has to be told who is the subject of the caricature: there’s little similarity to the real Mandelson, Samuels instead coming across as an unctuously camp Bradley Walsh.
Other members of the Blair cabinet appear in supporting roles, from Rosie Strobel’s rambunctious John Prescott Emily Cheng’s ginger wig-clad Robin Cook to a version of David Blunkett which takes the rather jaded step of encouraging us to laugh at someone’s blindness. One had hoped that in the last twenty-five years comedy might have moved on, but alas no. Still, given the number of jokes about Cook’s affair with his secretary – a reference which younger audiences would not get, much less care about – this is aimed at a particular type of older audience.
Faring slightly better is Gordon Brown. Phil Sealey’s performance is an end-of-the-pier grotesque, a man who cares so little for public image that he is prepared to come on stage with his trousers round his ankles, but the ongoing rivalry between him and Blair is a connecting line through the piece that allows for sprinkles of humanity behind the slapstick.
Steve Brown’s songs are enjoyably silly, and take in a variety of styles, with an Act I highlight being a Paso Doble between Tony and Cherie (the fun ‘She’s a Lady/He’s my Baby’). It is in Act II, though, where matters get more serious, and the flippancy attempts to give way to a more sombre tone.
Covering the September 11 attacks in a comedy would be a tricky line to walk for anyone, although one expects slightly more than a “9/11, mate?” Wink to the audience and a comedy number of Obama bin Laden and his three wives singing ‘Kill the Infidel’.
Things pick up with a version of Saddam Hussein that is crossed with Groucho Marx, and whose solo number, ‘I Never Done Anything Wrong’, plays like a modern version of a Gilbert and Sullivan patter song. Further musical class comes with a cod Tin Pan Alley pastiche, ‘Special Relationship’, as Blair and Bush team up as a Vaudevillian double act.
As Blair’s reputation crashes and burns, Brown’s ear for musical parody delivers its most Jesus Christ Superstar-like rock opera moments. But by the end, it feels like Tony! is more of an extended sketch show than a full musical. As satire, it fatally wounds itself by removing agency from its central figure, and relying a little too heavily on audience memories to appeal to anyone younger than middle age.
Scott Matthewman
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