What is it with playwrights? We've had Harold Pinter's anti-US rants, and David Hare's deeply felt - and deeply flawed - pronouncements. Now we have "writer and satirist" Alistair Beaton, who's written a musical comedy expressing his "outrage at the way Britain was pitched into the war against Iraq". It opens in Birmingham in April, before transferring to Hampstead, where I imagine it'll have a ready-made audience of Margaret Drabble think-alikes.
It seems to me likely that Blair relishes his role as war leader. His tone is increasingly Churchillian, his language increasingly biblical. Clothed in the shining armour of his faith, he leads us into battle. Act I of Follow My Leader finishes with Bush and Blair on their knees, sweetly singing, “We’re sending you a cluster bomb from Jesus”.Some may take offence, though I hope not, because it is not religion that is being attacked here, it is the hijacking of religion for the purposes of war.
Yep, didn't you just hate the way Bush and Blair attacked Iraq in the name of Christianity. And all these bombings by Christian fundamentalist groups.....
Update: I see Scott Burgess has already commented on Beaton's masterpiece....
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