Alistair Beaton’s new satirical musical has very sharp teeth. The funniest and most savage political satire to hit the stage in years, it charts the development of the war on terror from 9/11 to the present day and pulls no punches about the follies of Bush and Blair as the self-appointed champions of democracy and Christianity.
Starting with Genesis and ending with Revelation, it depicts a bullish God (Peter Polycarpou) and a limp and quintessentially British Blair, played by Jason Durr. It is an immaculate and wicked impersonation - the PM in apron and rubber gloves in the Downing Street kitchen, in silk dressing gown by baby Leo’s cot and rehearsing the unfamiliar “Let’s go kick ass” on the red telephone.
The Americans come out marginally worse. Stuart Milligan swaggers and bluffs his way through the war as Bush, while Martyn Ellis is outrageous as the gung-ho official from the American defence department. Hilarious highlights include a speech by Comical Ali as the new Downing Street spokesman, a wild appearance in the auditorium by a judge with a bucket of whitewash and a panto songsheet - ‘It’s okay to be anti-American.’
Song and dance routines like ‘We’re sending you a cluster bomb from Jesus’ are the slick cutting edge of the production. Bush’s speeches on peace and freedom are set against a huge backdrop of war and protest news footage and the slices of Thanksgiving turkey are the lucrative US rebuilding contracts.
God convicts Bush and Blair and Osama Bin Laden thanks them in a chilling ending. Altogether blistering.
Production information can change over the run of the show.
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