Gareth's Culture and Travel Blog

In another of those bizarre co-incidences, I found myself at this new musical by Ricky Simmonds & Simon Vaughan on the day its subject was taken into intensive care and two days after his fellow populist Trump was formally charged in New York. Though the show tells the story of the longest serving Italian premier since the Second World War, it could be the story of others like him, and the way they obtain and wield power.

It’s the final day of Berlusconi’s trial for tax fraud in 2012. He is in the process of writing the opera of his life, and the two merge to tell his story from post-war cruise crooner to property tycoon to media mogul to Football club owner to premier. The show uses three key women in his life – ex-wife Veronica, ex-lover & TV reporter Fama and prosecutor Ilda – to tell the story. He’s a mummy’s boy so Mama Rose looms large, alive and dead, and fixer Antonio seems to be omnipresent, bailing him out at every turn, much more astute than the man himself. The parallels with other populists like Trump, Bolsonaro and Johnson are uncanny, but he was the first, and the Italian electorate returned to him more than once.

It’s sung through and there are some good songs, though the sung dialogue, a contemporary version of opera’s recitative, does wear a bit thin. The vocal honours belong to the three women – Emma Hatton, Jenny Fotzpatrick & Sally Ann Triplett, all excellent. The band, behind the stage, sound a bit muddy, and I wondered if this new Southwark Playhouse venue will take as long to sort out the sound as the last one did. The stage resembles the steps of a Roman temple, emphasised by the head of Tiberius on a plinth. Projections onto the back wall as well as TV screens, some live, are used to great effect in James Grieve’s production.

Overall, it’s good fun, though it doesn’t really sustain its 2.5 hour length. It’s well performed, with Sebastien Torkia a suitably oily, manipulative Berlusconi, though not without a certain cheeky charm. I liked the way it ended on a cautionary message of ‘beware who you elect’ though events since suggest electors haven’t. It’s always good to see a new British musical, and this is no exception.