Review: BERLUSCONI - A NEW MUSICAL, Southwark Playhouse Elephant

Silvio Berlusconi. Il Cavaliere, the knight. Entrepreneur, television mogul, right-wing leader. Famous for his scandals, fraudulent deals, chummy attitudes with despots and other questionable figures. Cruise ship singer. Laughing stock and controversial political powerhouse. Does he deserve a musical that glamorises his exploits and explains his side of history even though we've heard nothing but? He doesn't, but you can leave it to the English to try and fail to spin a tale of power misuse and faded grandeur into a feminist elegy.

The award-winning producing team behind Fleabag want to paint the Italian tycoon from the eyes of the women he abused. Written by Ricky Simmonds and Simon Vaughan from an original idea by Alan Hayling, it's unnecessary and so lacking in politics that you come out of it having learnt very little about the protagonist except that he gets away with it.

Entirely sung-through by an excellent cast with a few revelations and impressively camp contributions, we don't get a moment of respite from the show's generally uninspired lyrics ("It happened to me... too" sing the three women whose story we're supposedly watching) and an unmemorable stock score. It even provides a draught of budget Sondheim, adding a moralistic ending about being careful about who we vote à la "Children Will Listen" - the only message in the piece falls awfully flat due to the preceding absence of any moral or theme. It has no plot and there are no stakes. There's no build-up and no grip. It's a musical with an identity crisis: it's Berlusconi according to Berlusconi with a dash of #MeToo to mitigate the fact that it's largely about nothing of importance.

The tracks follow one another closely without any narrative links. Silvio sings about being the Jesus Christ of politics while Ilda the prosecutor leads the 2012 court case against him and Fama reports on it. His ex-wife Veronica is a breath of fresh air in her precise accusations, as is Bella (the ghost of the Bunga Bunga victim, Ruby) in her invective. Their two solos are the best songs on the list, finally fulfilling the promise of Simmonds and Vaughan's premise. They prove what the project could be, briefly stepping away from the shambolic variety show they've come up with and turning it into a real exploration of the victims who were swept under the rug. What a shame it's just a flash.

Emma Hatton (Veronica) and Natalie Kassanga (Bella) are the highlights of the piece. Hatton's performance is sophisticated and subtle, while Kassanga's only big song truly is a show-stopping ballad. Matthew Woodyat's Antonio finally introduces his role as the premier's minion and confidante towards the end. He is tied down as the comic relief in a production that already tries too hard to be funny and his solo is misplaced, but his role shows once more that Berlusconi could be a catchy, interesting production.

The man of the hour, portrayed by a brilliant Sebastien Torkia, is a Sacha Baron Cohen-esque presence as he pompously strutting the stage with a self-congratulatory grin on his face. After quite the Mussolinian entrance, he's introduced as a vain, tanned, Botoxed caricature who went from dreaming of being a singer to building a property empire because of his parents. "But papà, music is my passion!" he pleads before donning a hi-vis and hard hat. The purchase of AC Milan and his political debut follow, but they're swiftly brushed aside like much of the events that made the PM. Everything is so quick and unexplored, yet the piece seems interminable.

Berlusconi - while obviously corrupt and a Big Bad Man - has had an interesting life. It's a pity we hardly get any of the juicy bits. Not even the tax fraud and sex scandals are that detailed. Sally Ann Triplett's Ilda reads off a long list of accusations from a scroll of linen cloth that rolls out from a briefcase (it's a nice touch) but the risqué parties aren't given the weight they deserve. They act as an empty background for songs that don't advance the narrative nor give the audience any peeks into the characters' psyche.

Berlusconi is a "healer, leader, saviour, redeemer" but also a "liar, abuser, corrupter, deceiver". None of these monikers are truly cracked open and analysed. We're told but never shown that he cheated on his wife and promised a young girl a career on the telly, yet a basic tango trivially offers a confrontation with the prosecutor. "Mani pulite" receives a brief news segment played on the televisions scattered around the auditorium while an unrelated song plays, but it's never mentioned and you wouldn't know what it was nor that it ever happened.

Pop tunes that all sound the same and suffer from a generalised lack of tension ultimately pursue a superficial story. An entirely tone-deaf instance comes when Putin (Gavin Wilkinson) enters shirtless, dressed in military trousers, boots, sunglasses, and a cross around his neck. A romantic montage ensues. Silvio looks at Vladimir, "A special person in [his] life" with heart-shaped eyes, while the latter calls him a puppet. It's supposed to be a comical moment, but we can't shake the fact that in the real world, the real Putin is still on a rampage. After that, the Russian president is nowhere to be seen and his appearance has no consequence whatsoever. Throughout all this, Silvio says he's writing an opera - which Antonio keeps calling a musical - adding a meta element that also doesn't lead anywhere.

While director James Grieve thankfully spares us the accents, video designer Stanley Orwin-Fraser fills the projections with typos. The text on the newspapers that loom over Lucy Osborne's Vittoriano-inspired set design is filled with them. Given that it's mostly written in English, it's even more inexcusable.

It isn't the only sloppy misstep: the word "mamma" becomes "mama" when Susan Fay is concerned as Silvio's mother. It's in the very name of her role, a wannabe saint-like presence who "taught [him] to be good. "Cavaliere" is constantly pronounced with an English "e" rather than the Italian one by everyone except for Torkia. It's the attention to small details that make a great piece, and this isn't it. We could go on, but we've already passed the 1000-word mark. Let's just say that non tutte le ciambelle escono col buco.

Berlusconi runs at Southwark Playhouse Elephant until 29 April.

Photo Credit: Nick Rutter