Tony! [The Tony Blair Rock Opera] – Park Theatre

Kaye Brown, Charlie Baker and Gary Trainor in Tony! [The Tony Blair Rock Opera] at the Park Theatre, London. Picture: Mark Douet

Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩

Everyone with an interest in UK politics has an opinion about ex-Prime Minister Sir Anthony Charles Lynton Blair. Whether positive or negative, that opinion might put one off attending a show called Tony! [The Tony Blair Rock Opera]. Those with the utmost respect for New Labour’s achievements wouldn’t want to see him lampooned, and those who hate him surely wouldn’t want to watch comedian Charlie Baker – talented though he may be – impersonate the man for two hours. Put that aside: this show is delightfully chaotic fun.

We all lived through the New Labour era (nobody now old enough to read was born post-2007 and I will not be convinced otherwise) and the creative team delight in sprinkling the script with familiar references, quotes and personalities from days gone by. Book-writer Harry Hill has had a distinguished career of comic nonsense, and as actors break character to comment on the ridiculousness of the play, his distinctive voice is loud and clear. The following is the greatest compliment I could bestow upon a professional production: this show, at times, has the anarchic feeling of a fringe show. Joyous.

Joining Hill on the creative team is Steve Brown, who composes the music and lyrics. The duo previously worked together on I Can’t Sing! The X Factor Musical at London’s cavernous Palladium theatre. That show was not as big a commercial hit as hoped, possibly due to a mismatch of comic tone and venue. Hill and Brown’s ridiculousness works best in close quarters. At the cosy Park Theatre there is no chance to take a mental step back and overanalyse the strangeness on which you have chosen to spend your evening: you are swept up in the fever dream whether you like it or not.

In the titular role, I Can’t Sing alum Charlie Baker beams such an exaggeration of that famous Blair grin that you hope the theatre has a physical therapist on staff to ensure his facial muscles survive the run. He commits fully to the comedy, not letting up even when the odd joke doesn’t land – a relatively rare occurrence which matters not a jot given the stunning density of gags. He works hard all evening to keep up the show’s relentless pace, but playing just one character, his role might be a holiday compared to some of the rest of the hard-working cast.

Nine other performers join Baker, but I soon lost count of the number of characters in the play. Delightfully cheap-looking false beards and the broadest of broad accents abound as this talented troupe give a masterclass in character comedy. Rosie Strobel’s John Prescott is a fine comic creation with shades of Kathy Burke at her best. She also plays Liam Gallagher and Osama Bin Laden – such obscene range! Princess Diana, in the hands of a shining Madison Swan, is a sultry showstopper who earns rapturous applause on her every appearance.

If Tony has an equivalent of Cabaret’s Emcee or Jesus Christ Superstar’s Judas, it is Howard Samuels as the constantly fourth-wall breaking Peter Mandelson. The characterisation feels surprisingly broad for 2022, but Samuels is winningly charismatic and a very capable singer and dancer.

Other infamous political figures given the Rock Opera treatment include Gary Trainor’s teddy bear-clutching Gordon Brown and mop-haired Dick Cheney – both perfectly realised; Kaye Brown’s Robin Cook, who is masterfully portrayed as a proudly womanising oddball; and Marisa Harris’ Clare Short, who is hilarious when given a chance to shine but sadly underused. Harris also takes on the duty of “female track understudy” and given her rollicking performance, I would love to see her interpretation of the other roles. The “male track understudy” Charles Angiama is used even less, but his brief appearances in the ensemble suggest he also is a very capable performer.

In the world of this play, there are two great loves in Blair’s life: Cherie Booth and George W. Bush. Martin Johnston smartly forgoes a straight impersonation of the ex-US president for a side-splitting generic Texan bombast. He carries this stage-owning authority over to his turns as former Labour leader Neil Kinnock and Home Secretary David Blunkett – the latter thankfully mining comedy out of more than just the obvious jokes about his disability that a lesser show might have relied upon. Holly Sumpton’s Cherie is somehow even more Liverpudlian then Johnston’s Bush is American. She is half Cilla Black and half Lady Macbeth, all while giving us some of the best vocals and physical comedy of the night.

Each member of the cast is vitally important to the success of the show. Director Peter Rowe ensures they all get many chances to shine individually in addition to being part of the perfectly cohered whole. Francesca Jaynes’ choreography gives the show a wild and busy energy only where appropriate, as well as adding a good helping of showbiz razzmatazz to numbers about politics and economics.

Brown’s score is performed by a two-piece band led by musical director Oli Jackson. This reduced instrumentation doesn’t show off all the sides of the varied and sometimes impressively ambitious music, but Jackson does a fine job with what he has available, and it all contributes towards the show’s slapdash appeal.

Act I of Tony!, with its irreverent retelling of Blair’s younger years and ascent to power, wins over the sceptical Wednesday night audience with ease. There is a charming silliness about creating a satirical musical two decades late, yet doing such a fine job packing it with great jokes and fun songs. Act II starts with 9/11 and covers the subsequent ‘War on Terror’ and Blair’s fall from grace. There is still fun to be had here, but as heavy topics from the real world seep into Hill and Brown’s giddy comic wonderland, the atmosphere does shift. Two hours is a long time to sustain a purely silly show, and you start to notice odd moments between hilarious comic set pieces that feel like satire too soft and too late. Blair is Bush’s poodle, Robin Cook looks like a gnome, Clare Short is short: jokes like these that you didn’t laugh at when you first heard them in 2005. Still, soon another perfectly ludicrous gag comes along and you’re back to chuckling.

I might not have gone to this show based purely on the title, but I left very glad I gave it a chance. If any part of you enjoys musical theatre and comedy, there is a feast to be enjoyed here. With plenty more pressing potential targets of satire extant in 2022, Hill and Brown’s decision to tackle Tony Blair instead makes one thing very clear: the goal of this show is pure entertainment. To quote an infamous warship banner flown 42 days after the start of the eight-year long Iraq War: mission accomplished. Don’t be put off by the concept, give in to the silliness, and catch it now while it’s playing at the perfect intimate venue to contain its wild energy.

Ian Bowkett