Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

Joyously liberating: Tony! [The Tony Blair Rock Opera] reviewed

Plus: a play about Socrates is that rare thing: a production that ends too soon

Could be a smash: Kaye Brown, Charlie Baker and Gary Trainor in Tony! [The Tony Blair Rock Opera]. Credit: Mark Douet Kaye Brown, Charlie Baker and Gary Trainor

Harry Hill’s latest musical traces Tony Blair’s bizarre career from student pacifist to war-mongering plaything of the United States. With co-writer Steve Brown, Hill has created a ramshackle, hasty-looking production that deliberately conceals the slickness and concentrated energy of its witty lyrics, superb visuals and terrific music.

The last thing it wants to seem is sophisticated and it starts off with a parade of New Labour grandees, all grotesquely overblown.

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