Star of the Left as never seen before
This time a year ago, I wonder whether a bookmaker would have offered you longer odds on Jeremy Corbyn becoming leader of the Labour Party or the subject of a sellout musical. He’d probably just have laughed you out the door. And yet both things have come to pass.
Corbyn the Musical: The Motorcycle Diaries, billed as a “no holds barred” satire of the bearded one, is written by two journalists, the baby-faced Rupert Myers, political correspondent at GQ, and Bobby Friedman.
Myers says that it’s inspired by the irreverence of comedy musical The
Book of Mormon and the quick-fire wit of The Thick of It – hard acts both to live up to. The writers have on their side the fact that Corbyn is the news story that keeps giving, from this week’s headlines about “tax bodging” to refusing to sing the national anthem, his plans to scrap Trident and his fling in the Seventies with Diane Abbott. But do we really need a musical about a man with as much charisma as the manhole covers he loves to photograph?
Actually, against all expectations, it turns out we kind of do. Anything which makes the granite-faced curmudgeon look like Kenny Everett in his pomp in a perm wig gets my vote.
The story is slight but diverting enough. Corbyn has become Prime Minister. Boris Johnson is leader of the opposition and Donald Trump is at the helm in Washington. Vladimir Putin is still in power in Russia and threatening nuclear war against the West. Why? I won’t tell you, because, hard as it is to spoil the plot, such as it is, to give that away might be a step too far. The narrative is interspersed with flashbacks to the Seventies, when, apocryphally (or maybe not) Corbyn went on a motorcycle holiday with Diane Abbott through East Germany (hence the Kenny Everett wig).
But, of course, the plot is just a framework for the writers to leap about on, like crazed satirical chimpanzees – and for the most part they acquit themselves with aplomb, lampooning political parties both Leftwing and Right: Blair will do anything for a cheque; Abbott anything for a free taxi fare; Boris thinks he’s a bit of a lothario; Corbyn strips down to do yoga and sings in praise of Islington tofu.
Similar to Mormon, songs parody everything from Lloyd Webber, Gilbert and Sullivan, Gloria Gaynor and Amy Winehouse. The lyrics fire some duds but there are some nice moments: “Can’t sink the hunger to go and war monger”, intones a wheelchair-bound Tony Blair brightly. The whole thing needs to speed up, get the crackle of The Thick of It, because at over two and a half hours it’s long.
Natasha Lewis, as Abbott, is the pick of the performers, while Martin Neely shifts convincingly between old and young Corbyn. James Dinsmore should have a career playing silly versions of Tony Blair.