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| Jez hands: how Corbyn the Musical lampoons the new king of the left | Jez hands: how Corbyn the Musical lampoons the new king of the left |
| (5 months later) | |
| Although the very idea of Corbyn the Musical sounds fascinatingly wacky, the show that opened this week at a London fringe theatre is not the first song-and-dance project to feature a leader of the parliamentary Labour party. | Although the very idea of Corbyn the Musical sounds fascinatingly wacky, the show that opened this week at a London fringe theatre is not the first song-and-dance project to feature a leader of the parliamentary Labour party. |
| Tony! The Blair Musical and its sequel Tony of Arabia had short try-outs around the start of Blair’s third, post-Iraq term – although, unlike their subject, they seem to have struggled to raise further funds. And the party’s other most regular election-winner, Sir Harold Wilson, was a character, with his own soft-shoe-shuffle number, in last year’s musical version of Made in Dagenham. | Tony! The Blair Musical and its sequel Tony of Arabia had short try-outs around the start of Blair’s third, post-Iraq term – although, unlike their subject, they seem to have struggled to raise further funds. And the party’s other most regular election-winner, Sir Harold Wilson, was a character, with his own soft-shoe-shuffle number, in last year’s musical version of Made in Dagenham. |
| Among other holders of the post, I can find no archival trace of Gaitskell: The Musical, or the names of James Callaghan and Gordon Brown followed by a theatrical exclamation mark, although Brown has been the subject of several recent speech shows, the best being Kevin Toolis’s The Confessions of Gordon Brown, which transferred from the Edinburgh fringe to London. | Among other holders of the post, I can find no archival trace of Gaitskell: The Musical, or the names of James Callaghan and Gordon Brown followed by a theatrical exclamation mark, although Brown has been the subject of several recent speech shows, the best being Kevin Toolis’s The Confessions of Gordon Brown, which transferred from the Edinburgh fringe to London. |
| And although Corbyn the Musical has premiered at the Waterloo East theatre, it feels so like an Edinburgh show that you are surprised, on leaving the theatre, not to hear bagpipers on the Royal Mile. | And although Corbyn the Musical has premiered at the Waterloo East theatre, it feels so like an Edinburgh show that you are surprised, on leaving the theatre, not to hear bagpipers on the Royal Mile. |
| Tonally, it has much common with two hits at the Scottish festival last year. Boris: World King, in which dramatist Tom Crawshaw farcically imagined the progress of the current Mayor of London to higher political responsibilities, and Patrick Ryecart’s When Blair Had Bush and Bunga, in which Tony, George W and Silvio Berlusconi plotted the path to war in Iraq during a holiday at Cliff Richard’s Caribbean villa. | Tonally, it has much common with two hits at the Scottish festival last year. Boris: World King, in which dramatist Tom Crawshaw farcically imagined the progress of the current Mayor of London to higher political responsibilities, and Patrick Ryecart’s When Blair Had Bush and Bunga, in which Tony, George W and Silvio Berlusconi plotted the path to war in Iraq during a holiday at Cliff Richard’s Caribbean villa. |
| Blair and Johnson are both major characters in Corbyn the Musical, which is set after the next British general election, when Boris is leader of the opposition and President Putin is threatening to annihilate London. This creates a dilemma for Britain’s surprise prime minister, Jeremy Corbyn, who has pledged never to press the nuclear button. Jezza, in his dilemma, receives unwanted consultancy from Blair, who is presented as a Bond villain, gliding around the globe advising regimes on how to start wars, even though he is not quite the man he used to be, following an unfortunate incident at a pool party thrown by Berlusconi. | Blair and Johnson are both major characters in Corbyn the Musical, which is set after the next British general election, when Boris is leader of the opposition and President Putin is threatening to annihilate London. This creates a dilemma for Britain’s surprise prime minister, Jeremy Corbyn, who has pledged never to press the nuclear button. Jezza, in his dilemma, receives unwanted consultancy from Blair, who is presented as a Bond villain, gliding around the globe advising regimes on how to start wars, even though he is not quite the man he used to be, following an unfortunate incident at a pool party thrown by Berlusconi. |
| As this armageddon scenario has been created partly by a scandal involving George Osborne and a llama, the show owes more to fancy than faction. The musical takes place in a satirical alternative world, in which Putin’s brutal opposition to homosexual rights is rooted in a personal secret, and it was something far more bizarre than Panama that ended David Cameron’s premiership. | As this armageddon scenario has been created partly by a scandal involving George Osborne and a llama, the show owes more to fancy than faction. The musical takes place in a satirical alternative world, in which Putin’s brutal opposition to homosexual rights is rooted in a personal secret, and it was something far more bizarre than Panama that ended David Cameron’s premiership. |
| A good way of judging both satire and musicals is the predictability test. Are the jokes only the ones that cartoonists and tweeters have already made? Can you pretty much guess the songs that arise from the plot? | A good way of judging both satire and musicals is the predictability test. Are the jokes only the ones that cartoonists and tweeters have already made? Can you pretty much guess the songs that arise from the plot? |
| The script and lyrics by Rupert Myers and Bobby Friedman for Corbyn the Musical pass these challenges impressively well. Some of the Johnson jokes are familiar – neither his boxers nor his promises stay up for very long – but the main dramatic conceit is weirdly original, with the key to Corbyn’s response to the end of the world lying in the eastern European motorbiking holiday he took with his then girlfriend, Diane Abbott, in the 1970s. This holiday is engagingly created in interleaved flashbacks, with the Corbyn actor ageing down in a frizzy fright-wig. | The script and lyrics by Rupert Myers and Bobby Friedman for Corbyn the Musical pass these challenges impressively well. Some of the Johnson jokes are familiar – neither his boxers nor his promises stay up for very long – but the main dramatic conceit is weirdly original, with the key to Corbyn’s response to the end of the world lying in the eastern European motorbiking holiday he took with his then girlfriend, Diane Abbott, in the 1970s. This holiday is engagingly created in interleaved flashbacks, with the Corbyn actor ageing down in a frizzy fright-wig. |
| The musical numbers, in a versatile operetta-to-rock score by Jen Green, are also often unexpected. The two big love ballads are Corbyn’s hymn to “Islington!” and a song for the young Vladimir Putin to the memory of the first dog that the USSR sent into space. Ministry of Defence civil servants get a perky Gilbertian duet about the state of Britain’s nuclear deterrent. Half-rhymes and assonances such as “Trident / violent” and “Clinton / intern” suggest that Myers and Friedman have a promising lyrical ear. | The musical numbers, in a versatile operetta-to-rock score by Jen Green, are also often unexpected. The two big love ballads are Corbyn’s hymn to “Islington!” and a song for the young Vladimir Putin to the memory of the first dog that the USSR sent into space. Ministry of Defence civil servants get a perky Gilbertian duet about the state of Britain’s nuclear deterrent. Half-rhymes and assonances such as “Trident / violent” and “Clinton / intern” suggest that Myers and Friedman have a promising lyrical ear. |
| Also unusual is the show’s political stance. Most fringe political dramas in the Edinburgh tradition are implicitly leftwing, criticising Blair, Brown or Johnson from an Old Left perspective. Corbyn the Musical is at one level politically balanced – implying that it would be equally disastrous to give the keys of 10 Downing Street to either Johnson or Corbyn – but the flashes of real satirical anger are reserved for the Labour leader’s alleged failure to distance himself from antisemitic or otherwise extremist speakers he has met during his political career. | Also unusual is the show’s political stance. Most fringe political dramas in the Edinburgh tradition are implicitly leftwing, criticising Blair, Brown or Johnson from an Old Left perspective. Corbyn the Musical is at one level politically balanced – implying that it would be equally disastrous to give the keys of 10 Downing Street to either Johnson or Corbyn – but the flashes of real satirical anger are reserved for the Labour leader’s alleged failure to distance himself from antisemitic or otherwise extremist speakers he has met during his political career. |
| Without attempting an exact verbal impersonation, Martin Neely nicely captures the slightly earnest decency of Corbyn, while David Muscat doubles a Johnson and Putin who come from amusingly different places on the spectrum of male sexuality. Diane Abbott might be pleased by the feisty intelligence that Natasha Lewis brings to the role, though perhaps less so by the running gags about her attitude to private schooling. Adam Lenson’s inventive direction summons on a tiny stage locations including No 10, an East German bar and a British Airways cabin. | Without attempting an exact verbal impersonation, Martin Neely nicely captures the slightly earnest decency of Corbyn, while David Muscat doubles a Johnson and Putin who come from amusingly different places on the spectrum of male sexuality. Diane Abbott might be pleased by the feisty intelligence that Natasha Lewis brings to the role, though perhaps less so by the running gags about her attitude to private schooling. Adam Lenson’s inventive direction summons on a tiny stage locations including No 10, an East German bar and a British Airways cabin. |
| Whether musical or spoken, political comedies of the Edinburgh or quasi-Edinburgh type are essentially live-action caricatures, but at its best this show matches the standard of the strongest leader-page cartoonists. If tightened and trimmed of some of its sillier gags, Corbyn the Musical has the potential to become a fringe cult – although, for that to happen, it needs the Labour leader to stick around for longer than its content seems to suggest that he should. | Whether musical or spoken, political comedies of the Edinburgh or quasi-Edinburgh type are essentially live-action caricatures, but at its best this show matches the standard of the strongest leader-page cartoonists. If tightened and trimmed of some of its sillier gags, Corbyn the Musical has the potential to become a fringe cult – although, for that to happen, it needs the Labour leader to stick around for longer than its content seems to suggest that he should. |
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