Harry Hill and Steve Brown’s rock opera Tony! tells the former prime minister’s story with colour and camp. If you want a serious, factual and nuanced approach to politics, this isn’t it – but otherwise, it’s a riot.
Perverts, psychopaths, masochists or just plain ar*eholes?
Tony! (The Tony Blair Rock Opera) joins a hallowed hall of scholars and writers attempting to unpick the persona of the almighty politican and the perennial question of why on earth anyone would want to be one.
Yet Tony! dares to ask the question even the best select committee has not – is Tony Blair’s premiership the result of a failed musical career?
It’s Blair’s days in rock band Ugly Rumours while he roughed it down at Oxford that serve as inspiration for the musical. Blair (Jack Whittle) beams, with a pitchy energetic voice best befitting of a 90s car ad. As he trips into his political career, persuaded by the opportunity to be like his hero “Mick Jaggers”, Blair is a dumbstruck, eager-to-please enthusiast, willing to do anything to grasp at star power.
Puppeteered by his wife Cherie (Torie Burgess), Peter Mandelson (Howard Samuels) and George W. Bush (Martin Johnston), Whittle stars alongside a small but mighty cast. The ensemble excels in portrayals of the bizarre and downright shocking – from comedic musical pieces by Princess Diana and Osama Bin Laden to phallic carrot-and-stick metaphors and bold audience interactions.
The key tension of the musical falls in the second act, with the UK’s decision to go to war in Iraq. Attempting to make a critical point about this era, the show depicts Blair standing abandoned by his cabinet and shrouded in darkness on stage.
However, for a play toying with tropes – from Cherie Blair as a Scouse Lady Macbeth, to a kilt-wearing Alastair Campbell – that key Iraq war moment, while perhaps necessary, felt underdeveloped. Whittle’s Blair moves hastily from excitable puppy to a naïve villain. Some greater commentary on the changing public perception of Blair’s character from 2001 onwards may have smoothed this transition while keeping up with the comedic pace of the show.
With bad wigs, an occasionally amateur score, and one-dimensional performances, you’d be forgiven for not expecting a lot from comedian Harry Hill’s and Steve Brown’s new musical. That being said, if you want a serious, factual and nuanced approach to politics, crack open an 800-page memoir – this isn’t it.
We’ve become accustomed to drab fictional depictions of politicians. They loom in shadowy corners of Buckingham Palace in The Crown or are played by a high-calibre thespian like Streep, Branagh or Oldman covered in dodgy prosthetics.
Instead, Tony! infuses the trajectory of Blair’s political career with as much colour and camp as an overpriced refurb of Downing Street. After a particularly excruciating couple of years in politics, the satirical respite of Tony! is just what the spin doctor ordered.
Tony! is on at the Lowry until Sat 7 October, and at the Liverpool Playhouse from Tue 10 to Sat 14 October.
Image: The Lowry
