An interview with comedian Harry Hill and composer Steve Brown, the creative geniuses behind the musical comedy on the life of Tony Blair, has been published by the Repertory Theatre.
Following a sold-out run in London, TONY! [The Tony Blair Rock Opera] has now embarked on an eagerly awaited UK tour, and is at The Rep from Wednesday 7 to Saturday 10 June.
In their interview, The Rep asked: What’s the basic premise? Harry: “It starts with him as a peace-loving hippie in a band, he then becomes Britain’s most successful Labour prime minister before turning into what he is now – a kind of outcast. People have very strong feelings about him. I often wonder ‘If you bumped into him in the street, would you ask him for a selfie?’ He polarises opinion but we try not to take sides in the show. Well, we do take sides, but not left- or right-leaning. It’s more about the process of democracy and whether we ever get the leaders that we deserve.”
Where did the original inspiration come from? Steve: “We’ve seen what the public are prepared to fall for, although I’m not saying they fell for anything he didn’t at least attempt to give them. You may not agree with his principles but, as Groucho Marx, said: ‘These are my principles and if you don’t like those I’ve got others’, and at least Blair had some.”
What makes his story ripe for musical comedy? Steve: “In terms of it being a musical, in a sense he was the first rock-and-roll Prime Minister. We call it a rock opera but it’s a musical comedy. When he came to power there was the whole Britpop thing, which we allude to in one scene, and he’s obsessed with Mick Jagger and the guitar. Then he had Noel Gallagher round at Number Ten, sort of dishonouring the building and quaffing champagne.”
Can you tell us a bit about the music in the show? Steve: “Whoever is singing it and what’s being said dictates the style. Saddam Hussein, for example, has a number that is done like Groucho Marx – to mention him again – more or less because Saddam had the moustache and the cigar, except his moustache wasn’t painted on. New Labour is very Britpop, and we begin in a sinisterly operatic, Grand Guignol style because Blair is on his deathbed. It’s like Citizen Kane: we start with him dying, then head backwards. He’s sort of resurrected at the end and delivers the moral, which the audience goes out humming.”
Which other characters are featured? And how much is fact and how much is fiction? Harry: “We’ve got John Prescott being played by a woman, as is Robin Cook. We’ve also got Gordon Brown, Princess Diana, Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and George Bush in there. We admit we’re playing with the truth all the way through … We also have Princess Diana coming back as a ghost.”
Steve: “Which to the best of our knowledge has never happened! And there are time constraints. The tour incarnation will be two tight 45-minute acts. In order to get everything in there, sometimes you have to lie to tell the truth. Boris Johnson told me that!”
What are you most looking forward to about taking the show around the country? Harry: “When we did it at the Park Theatre in London it was a kind of Labour heartland and a cafe opposite had a banner saying ‘Reinstate Jeremy Corbyn’. They absolutely lapped it up, they got all the jokes and often were on their feet at the end. Whether young people will get all the jokes I don’t know. But I think it will do really well the further north we get.”
Steve: “You often get a much noisier reception in the north. The further south you go you tend to get slightly more loud smiling rather than raucous laughter. Ultimately, we’ve done something that makes us laugh. You just have to assume you’re not the only two maniacs in the country.”
Have you invited Mr Blair to come to see it? Harry: “There’s an open invitation for Tony to come along and half-price for any members of his family. It is a business, after all. I talked to someone who knew Tony Blair back in the 1990s and asked them ‘What would he make of it?’ They told me he basically doesn’t have a sense of humour. They said Cherie might find it funnier.”
Rave reviews of TONY! include: “I was laughing so much I struggled to swallow my beer” (Daily Mail), “Harry Hill puts the party into politics” (The Guardian) and “Pure satire that is eccentrically British, with a great rock’n’roll soundtrack and original humour” ( Theatre Weekly). To book seats, visit https://www.birmingham-rep.co.uk/whats-on/tony-the-tony-blair-the-rock-opera/.
