Edinburgh round-up

Propaganda is said to work best when based upon a grain of truth. Ukip! The Musical assumes that most electors are suspicious of the movement and its leaders. And in Edinburgh that may well be the case. The show portrays Nigel Farage as a bewildered twerp with no charisma and little talent for oratory. His first speech at an Essex shopping centre begins, ‘I am not a pretty nationalist, sorry, a petty nationalist.’ He then falls under the influence of a manipulative racist named Godfrey Bloom. I should point out that ‘Bloom’ in this piece refers to the character in the show, not to the retired politician. Bloom is first seen in a Westminster club, Gay Banana, dressed in a grass-skirt and singing the praises of Bongo-Bongo Land. ‘Sell your daughter/ But don’t drink the water’. Bloom advises Farage to wear a silly overcoat and to portray himself as a straight-talking fag-smoking geezer from down the pub. Farage duly becomes a folk hero and together they popularise the xenophobic anthem ‘Let’s Pull Up The Drawbridge’. The audience is invited to sing along with the chorus: ‘We need to take a stand/ For England’s green and pleasant land/ Now just fuck off to your own place/ We hope you understand/ Sieg Heil.’

Inspired by this slogan, Farage becomes prime minister whereupon Bloom mounts a palace coup and forces Ukip to enact the policies of the National Front. All immigrants are to be repatriated irrespective of how long they, or their forebears, have lived in Britain. Bloom argues that to pick and choose between immigrants would be discriminatory. Farage, with his French heritage, manages to avoid deportation, but his beloved wife Kirsten is sent back to Germany. He resigns in disgust and becomes a sympathetic hero who pines for his absent partner and consoles himself by reading sentimental Edwardian poetry.