The Week on Stage: From Tony! [The Tony Blair Rock Opera] to Dreamers 夢中人

It’s been a big week for musical theatre and serious dramas over in theatre land.

In London, Harry Hill debuted his first musical since his short-lived X Factor parody I Can’t Sing!, while Papergang Theatre’s anonymous drama about the 2019 Hong Kong protests also began. In Edinburgh, Fergus Morgan reviewed Proclaimers jukebox musical Sunshine on Leith.

Come back next week for a new bunch of reviews, including Jitney (check out our interview with director Tinuke Craig here) and That Is Not Who I Am at the Royal Court, written by uber-mysterious new playwright Dave Davidson, whoever they may be...

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

Maybe I’m naive, but I had high hopes for Tony!, Harry Hill’s Tony Blair rock opera. Those hopes, it turns out, were unfounded. In this messy production, one lyric in five is laugh-out-loud funny and the songs are generally basic, with not an earworm between them. The show is somehow both tasteless and pretty tame – boomer humour writ large.

We meet Tony (Charlie Baker) on his deathbed, his life flashing before his eyes. There’s his childhood (walking around with shoes on his knees), Oxford, life as an MP, becoming prime minister and, of course, the Iraq War. Colonel Gaddafi and Osama bin Laden make appearances, prompting one particularly eyeroll-worthy line about “putting the ‘dick’ in dictator”. Clearly someone thinks a white woman wearing a turban on stage is shocking enough to carry the show, rather than, say, the most predictable thing they could do.

open image in gallery

What prevents Tony! from being a total car crash is the cast. Baker is funny and charming as Tony, even if we’ve seen his posh-boy shtick on screen before in The IT Crowd. But the real star is Gary Trainor as an unsmiling, silently seething Gordon Brown.

This clearly isn’t a cheap show, so why does it look like it? Did half the budget go on the glowing “Tony!” hanging above the stage, leaving the cast with dodgy wigs and hokey costumes? Similarly, with only two people in the band, the score is frustratingly lacking in depth. If Tony! was a show at the Fringe, it’d be seen differently, but at more than two hours, it’s inexcusable. Isobel Lewis

Sunshine on Leith – King’s Theatre, Edinburgh ★★★★☆

It’s hard to go wrong with Sunshine on Leith, the jukebox musical written by Stephen Greenhorn and inspired by the greatest hits of folk-rock duo The Proclaimers. It may be maudlin and misty-eyed, but – more importantly – Sunshine on Leith remains heartfelt and nicely homespun. It’s ultimately hard to resist.

The 11 albums by The Proclaimers are perfect for a work like this. Their songs are relatable and often raucous tributes to universal experiences: first loves, engagements, marriages, break-ups. Throw in some rowdy choruses stuffed with catchy call-and-response hooks, and the show basically writes itself. Greenhorn’s plot is significantly more sophisticated than that of most jukebox musicals, incorporating themes of Scottish identity, industrial decline, the problems of post-military life, and, yes, romance.

open image in gallery

As a vehicle for Proclaimers tunes, Sunshine on Leith really works. “I’m On My Way” slots neatly into the soldiers’ returning romp down Leith Walk at the show’s start. “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)” is the perfect foot-stomping, hand-clapping closer. Only a couple of songs – notably “Over and Done With” and “Throw the ‘R’ Away” – feel shoehorned into the story.

Sunshine on Leith will return to Pitlochry after its two-week run in Edinburgh, after which the King’s Theatre will go dark for a lengthy and long-awaited renovation. It’s tough, whatever the musical’s flaws, to think of a more fitting show to go out on. Fergus Morgan

Read the full review here.

Dreamers 夢中人 – Omnibus Theatre ★★★☆☆

Dreamers is a play that seems to brim with lived experience. Papergang Theatre’s cast, who perform anonymously to protect their identities, imaginatively explore the grit and suffering of Hong Kongers who protested in 2019 against China’s clampdown on their freedom.

open image in gallery

Through a combination of acting, dance and interactive technology, the show sweeps the audience into the hazards the young demonstrators face. The automated reading of a Telegram channel is unusual but pays off. Via its instant messages, the viewers get more fully absorbed into the adrenaline-filled world of the protest movement, hemmed in by the threat of police violence and laced with the pain of exile.

The simple set, backed by scaffolding and spray-painted images, serves as a similarly effective portal. While the acting – delivered in both English and Chinese – is raw with emotion, it can sometimes feel a little rushed. But overall, the originality of the play wins out. Rory Sullivan