London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Friday, Sep 19, 2025

Tony Blair rock opera to be staged in London in 2021

Tony Blair rock opera to be staged in London in 2021

Princess Diana and Osama bin Laden are among characters in show to be staged at London’s Turbine theatre
The life of Tony Blair is to be staged as a rock opera next year, featuring a cast of characters including Princess Diana and Saddam Hussein.

Tony! (A Tony Blair Rock Opera) will be performed at the Turbine theatre, at Battersea power station in London, next February with lyrics by the comedian Harry Hill.

Key political aides during Blair’s time as prime minister from 1997 to 2007 are also to be depicted, including his director of communications Alastair Campbell, adviser Peter Mandelson and deputy prime minister John Prescott.

Osama bin Laden, President George W Bush and Blair’s chancellor and successor, Gordon Brown, will also appear as characters in the production, which is one of a number of shows in the festival MTFestUK 2021, which runs from 1 to 13 February.

The opera, being performed from 4 to 6 February, will tell the former prime minister’s life story and will play “fast and loose with the facts”, according to the theatre.

Blair was in his first year in Downing Street when Princess Diana died in Paris in 1997. His tenure is remembered for the contentious invasions of Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003, which led to the execution of Saddam, the country’s former president.

Paul Taylor-Mills, artistic director of the Turbine theatre, said: “It’s impossible to ignore the challenges and sheer nerve required to make any kind of announcement during these times.

“With all that in mind, I couldn’t be prouder to be associated with the Turbine theatre and everything that it stands for, particularly with regard to investing in and generating new work.

“It’s fair to say that MTFestUK 2021 is going to be our most diverse to date and I’m thrilled to be presenting musicals from first-time writers, alongside Tony and Olivier award-winning artists.”

It is not the first production based on the 67-year-old former prime minister, who has gone on to set up a global institute and interfaith charitable foundation. Tony! The Blair Musical, a satire written by Chris Bush, and its sequel Tony of Arabia had short try-outs around the start of his third term in charge of the country.

In 2016, Corbyn the Musical: The Motorcycle Diaries premiered at the Waterloo East theatre, written by Rupert Myers and Bobby Friedman. It featured an appearance from a character playing the role of Blair and was set in a future where Jeremy Corbyn, then Labour leader, was prime minister and Russia had declared nuclear war on the west.
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
DeepSeek Claims R1 Model Trained for only $294,000, Sparking Global Debate Over China’s AI Capabilities
SoftBank Vision Fund to Cut Nearly Twenty Percent of Staff in Bold AI Strategy Shift
Intel’s Next-Gen Manufacturing Gets a Lifeline from Nvidia’s Strategic $5B Deal
Erika Kirk Elected CEO of Turning Point USA After Husband Charlie Kirk’s Assassination
Massive Strikes in France Pressure Macron and New PM on Austerity Proposals
Trump Seeks Supreme Court Permission to Remove Fed Governor Lisa Cook
Hillary Clinton’s Reckless Rhetoric Fuels Division After Charlie Kirk’s Assassination
NASDAQ Rises to Record as Intel Soars More Than 20%, Nvidia Gains 3%
Nvidia’s $5 Billion Bet on Intel Reshapes AI Hardware Landscape
Trump and Starmer Clash Over UK Recognition of Palestinian State Amid State Visit
Trump’s Quip on Biden and Google Lawsuit Revives Debate Over Antitrust Legacy
Macron and his wife to provide 'scientific photographic evidence' that she is a real woman
US Tech Giants Pledge Billions to UK AI Infrastructure Following Starmer's Call
Saudi Arabia cracks down on music ‘lounges’ after conservative backlash
DeepMind and OpenAI Achieve Gold at ‘Coding Olympics’ in AI Milestone
SEC Allows Public Companies to Block Investors from Class-Action Lawsuits
Saudi Arabia Signs ‘Strategic Mutual Defence’ Pact with Pakistan, Marking First Arab State to Gain Indirect Access to Nuclear Strike Capabilities in the Region
Federal Reserve Cuts Rates by Quarter Point and Signals More to Come
Effective and Impressive Generation Z Protest: Images from the Riots in Nepal
European manufacturers against ban on polluting cars: "The industry may collapse"
Sam Altman sells the 'Wedding Estate' in Hawaii for 49 million dollars
Trump: Cancel quarterly company reports and settle for reporting once every six months
Turkish car manufacturer Togg Enters German Market with 5-Star Electric Sedan and SUV to Challenge European EV Brands
US Launches New Pilot Program to Accelerate eVTOL Air Taxi Deployment
Christian Brueckner Released from German Prison after Serving Unrelated Sentence
World’s Longest Direct Flight China Eastern to Launch 29-Hour Shanghai–Buenos Aires Direct Flight via Auckland in December
New OpenAI Study Finds Majority of ChatGPT Use Is Personal, Not Professional
Hong Kong Industry Group Calls for HK$20 Billion Support Fund to Ease Property Market Stress
Joe Biden’s Post-Presidency Speaking Fees Face Weak Demand amid Corporate Reluctance
Charlie Kirk's murder will break the left's hateful cancel tactics
Kash Patel erupts at ‘buffoon’ Sen. Adam Schiff over Russiagate: ‘You are the biggest fraud’
Homeland Security says Emmy speech ‘fanning the flames of hatred’ after Einbinder’s ‘F— ICE’ remark
Charlie Kirk’s Alleged Assassin Tyler Robinson Faces Death Penalty as Charges Formally Announced
Actor, director, environmentalist Robert Redford dies at 89
The conservative right spreads westward: a huge achievement for 'Alternative for Germany' in local elections
JD Vance Says There Is “No Unity” with Those Who Celebrate Charlie Kirk’s Killing, and he is right!
Trump sues the 'New York Times' for an astronomical sum of 15 billion dollars
Florida Hospital Welcomes Its Largest-Ever Baby: Annan, Nearly Fourteen Pounds at Birth
U.S. and Britain Poised to Finalize Over $10 Billion in High-Tech, Nuclear and Defense Deals During Trump State Visit
China Finds Nvidia Violated Antitrust Laws in Mellanox Deal, Deepens Trade Tensions with US
US Air Force Begins Modifications on Qatar-Donated Jet Amid Plans to Use It as Air Force One
Pope Leo Warns of Societal Crisis Over Mega-CEO Pay, Citing Tesla’s Proposed Trillion-Dollar Package
Poland Green-Lights NATO Deployment in Response to Major Russian Drone Incursion
Elon Musk Retakes Lead as World’s Richest After Brief Ellison Surge
U.S. and China Agree on Framework to Shift TikTok to American Ownership
London Daily Podcast: London Massive Pro Democracy Rally, Musk Support, UK Economic Data and Premier League Results Mark Eventful Weekend
This Week in AI: Meta’s Superintelligence Push, xAI’s Ten Billion-Dollar Raise, Genesis AI’s Robotics Ambitions, Microsoft Restructuring, Amazon’s Million-Robot Milestone, and Google’s AlphaGenome Update
Le Pen Tightens the Pressure on Macron as France Edges Toward Political Breakdown
Musk calls for new UK government at huge pro-democracy rally in London, but Britons have been brainwashed to obey instead of fighting for their human rights
Elon Musk responds to post calling for the murder of Erika Kirk, widow of Charlie Kirk: 'Either we fight back or they will kill us'
×