Review: Rishi Sunak's Doing a Musical (Waterloo East Theatre)

Review by Dan Sinclair

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Rishi Sunak singing about being 9ft, Keir Starmer playing the recorder, a ghostly visitation from Jeremy Corbyn, and Nigel Farage’s bare cheeks: is there a better way to celebrate the general election? We can all agree that it’s been an exhausting 6 weeks, but Rishi’s planned independence day started the cogs whirring in the brains of writers Rob Gathercole and Joe Venable. What if on top of 6 weeks of depressing news stories and the democratic end of days, we ‘hastily’ write a satirical musical? And that’s just what they have done. 

We open on a sorry sight, in the pouring rain stands one Rishi Sunak. The date is set, as July 4th. He’s down 20 points, his party are abandoning him, the people hate him, the economy is on its knees and there’s only one thing he can do to turn this ship around - write a musical. He gives former Tory Peer Andrew Lloyd Webber a ring for help, but he’s a bit busy teaching Drama School graduates how to roller skate right now so send his two apprentices, Joe and Rob. The Waterloo East Theatre is booked, it’s time to write this thing. After some creative disputes, we get to the meat of the show - The Sound of Sunak. 

Even though we are frequently reminded how ‘hastily’ this show was put together, it is top-tier satire, equal parts hysterical and ridiculous. The songs are expertly written by two writers close to the top of their game. In the writing, direction and performances, there is some serious musical talent on this stage.‘It’s not propaganda if the songs are catchy’, I’m looking at you Miss Saigon. It is also undoubtedly a show aimed at the theatre community, with its music, lyrics and choreography crammed full of references to popular musicals. 

‘I’m going to stop the boats in my Technicolour Dreamcoat’ 

I did admittedly have reservations going in, as discussed by Armando Ianucci and Chris Morris - political satire is an increasingly tricky task when the (former) Prime Minister visits Titanic and the leader of the Lib Dems is making the most of his Center Parks membership card. It can risk coming across as self-congratulatory, especially considering the outcome of the 4th. This is not a problem for the musical, fully recognising that it is preaching to the choir. (James) Cleverly, I feel it actually gives more attention to the (current) Prime Minister, Kier Starmer than the titular one. Played with impish joy by Katie Pritchard, he screams ‘CHANGE!’ at us, realises he has more in common with Sunak than he realised, plays the recorder a bit and leads us in the anthem of the election:

‘Things can only get (slightly) better!’

The Sound of Sunak takes the shape of a cabaret show, giving us fantastic performances from an ever-rotating and ever-multi-rolling cast. As our protagonist Rishi, Kurran Dhand is infuriating, flat and lacking in any spark. He nails the role. Celeste Collier’s evil turn as Liz Truss belongs in a Disney film, with her spitting tongue and widened eyes. However, my favourite moment has to be Rob Gathercole’s performance of Alastair Campbell. Along with Collier’s Rory Stewart, it was inspired and surprisingly erotic. It is also a sign of what this musical does so well, this is not just an attack on Rishi Sunak as the title would suggest but any candidate, journalist or commentator within a 50-mile radius of the election. Nobody is safe - the sign of real juicy satire. 

In its final act, Sunak attempts to fight back against the Musical writing wokerati and compose his own piece with the help of AI, creating a non-sensical, convoluted and disjointed musical. The issue then comes when we have to watch a bad musical to understand that a musical written by an AI would be bad. This is only a 10-minute chunk of the show but it is a noticeable dip in the show. Of course, the plot only exists to pin exceptional musical numbers on to, but this was the only part where it felt like the story slightly got in the way. 

As Rishi Sunak’s Doing a Musical reminds us, British Democracy is upheld by satirists writing silly songs and slapstick sketches about the most powerful figures in our society (eg: Monty Python, The Thick of It, The Canterbury Tales, Beyond the Fringe) and Joe and Rob slot into this great tradition just nicely. Perhaps we should record it and put it in a time capsule, or give it a sell-out run somewhere in a few months. Either’s fine with me. 

Rishi Sunak’s Doing a Musical is showing at the Waterloo East Theatre until Saturday 6th July. 

Tickets can be found here: https://www.waterlooeast.co.uk/rishi-sunaks-doing-a-musical