Most politicians have to wait until the end of their careers before they're immortalised in some sort of art form. The gloss of Tony Blair's first few years in office had long worn off by the time a plethora of films and plays appeared. Barack Obama is, of course, different. He'd written two best-selling books before he'd even accepted the Democratic nomination. A remix of one of his speeches, "Yes We Can", has been seen by more than 20 million people online. Like him or loathe him, he has single-handedly made the presidential race an event of unprecedentedly glossy global interest.
There was, however, one thing missing: a musical. That cultural void has now been filled by the subtly named The Obama Musical, which premiered in a 60-seater pub theatre in a quiet suburb of West London on Sunday evening. Music, musicians and politics have often mixed, if not always successfully. In the 1960s, the likes of Bob Dylan and Joan Baez made a major impact on Britain's national consciousness. During the 2004 US presidential race, Springsteen, REM, Pearl Jam, the Dave Matthews Band, the Dixie Chicks and others teamed up with the anti-Bush group MoveOn.org for the "Vote for Change" tour. It didn't work too well. Was The Obama Musical to be the British equivalent of Bruce Springsteen telling a crowd of 11,000 at a concert at Eastern Michigan University on Monday to "take America back" by voting for Barack?
I should perhaps, at this point, declare an interest - or rather a lack of interest. In one of the more bizarre telephone conversations of my life, I took a call from the Obama show's writer, Teddy Hayes, a couple of months ago in which he asked whether I'd like to co-produce an America-wide tour of his show and my own musical, Blair on Broadway, which had a brief run in the West End earlier this year. I said no. On Sunday night, I was keen to see if I had made a dreadful mistake.
My uncharitable reaction on first taking a cramped seat in the overheated basement was that I had probably saved myself rather a lot of money. A hastily constructed "Obama 4 Prez" sign ran across the three-metre stage. The opening scene contained a joke about John McCain wearing nappies - "I can see the headlines now: 'Leaks from incontinent president's office causes flood of controversy'" - which would have embarrassed a five-year-old, let alone a published author of a string of detective novels such as Hayes.
More surprisingly, the title turned out to be rather more subtle than I had thought, for the show didn't feature Obama at all, apart from a surreal scene in which an ageing political junkie dances with a man in an Obama mask, played, incidentally, by the same actor who portrayed Tony Blair's spin doctor Alastair Campbell in Blair on Broadway. It's a small world of fringe, political musicals in London.
The action in Obama takes place in an unidentified regional office of the Obama campaign. The plot, such as it is, is that the daughter of the marketing director, Curtis, has been caught in a bar by a conservative journalist, Russell Frapp, who writes up a scurrilous report. Curtis goes round to confront him and everyone makes up, prompting a song about "change" and understanding one another. Then, it's suddenly announced that the campaign has run out of money so the staffers decide to put on a musical about Obama in order to raise more funds (from personal experience, I know this is a very bad way to go about raising money). A policeman appears and is seduced. A cheerleader appears and is rebuffed. A McCain mole is uncovered and thrown out. And then the cast of 11 all appear on a stage the size of a postage stamp, looking as if they're waiting for a train on the London underground, and sing a song, like a Producers-style musical within a musical, about how wonderful Obama is. The telephone rings. Obama is in town, two days before the election, but still has time to pop into watch their hastily assembled show. He's going to be there in half an hour. And then that's it. Curtain.
I'm paraphrasing, of course, but not, I think, unfairly. The fact is, it contains three good songs out of 14, a lengthy discussion of a dream involving a naked Condoleezza Rice while Bush looks on in polka-dotted underwear, rather too many puerile jokes and a scene in which one of the staffers sits cross-legged on the floor and imagines Buddhist monks helping their cause by chanting, "Obamamamamamamama".
"I came up with the idea when I was doing a music video to support Obama to put on to YouTube," Hayes said. "I met some of the people from the Obama campaign in London and I thought that it might be a funny idea to present a musical about people involved in working behind the scenes in a campaign." His research on the strange, egocentric breed who work in political back offices has clearly paid off. Although it is difficult to imagine Obama enjoying his current poll leads if his support staff really were this useless, they are a diverse and entertaining group.
Curtis, the marketing director, is tired of writing pamphlets with names like "Obama: the chosen one", and wants to be somebody himself. "Mad Mary" is a fiftysomething political junkie who got together with the student leader of the seventh grade and has obsessed over pretty much every politico since. A delivery girl pretends to change her vote on a daily basis depending on how much each campaign office tips her. A stressed boss works 20-hour days at being "the perfect organiser" while her husband has affairs. In addition to the mole, there are two other people - one white, one black - in the office considering voting Republican. Their moving duet in Act II, He's a Negro, in which the black, naturally Republican staffer sings, "I must vote for him", while his white, naturally Republican colleague sings, "I can't vote for him" makes a rare intelligent political point. The bar, however, has been set rather low by this stage.
The friendships and rivalries are also brought out well by the director, Tim McArthur (who I last saw in a fat suit playing John Prescott in Blair on Broadway). McArthur's intention - I'm not sure if this was his remit - was to "put the camp back into campaigning". In this he is undoubtedly successful, notably in a good jazz number about money featuring dancing girls wearing dollar bills and a song about telephone canvassing involving a complex dance routine replete with flexes.
Hayes hopes to tour with the production, "first in England, then in other countries, maybe even Abu Dhabi, then later in the States". He is so likeable and engaging that it is impossible not to wish him well. It is, however, also impossible to imagine the play succeeding in its current format. On the one hand, it almost works as a charming, self-contained snapshot of any political campaign at any time. In which case, it would require a title change and an excision of all the good stuff at the end. On the other hand, if it really is The Obama Musical, why is there so little political insight? Why, for example, isn't Sarah Palin mentioned even once?
"For me she isn't really an important player but an expedient political strategy for McCain that doesn't seem to be working," argues Hayes. "Remember Geraldine Ferraro? I bet you don't. She was the woman democratic vice-president running mate for Walter Mondale in 1984. I think Sarah Palin will follow the same path to obscurity." But still, surely he could have had more fun with her than with McCain nappy jokes. And why do people occasionally pop in at random and mention that the polls are up or down as if that will suffice for external narrative? Why does the whole plot turn on the fact that the campaign has run out of money when Obama's campaign is well known to be the best funded in history?
None of this entirely spoils what is essentially an enjoyable romp. In terms of political impact, The Obama Musical is more Dixie Chicks than Dylan, but like many in the world, I woke up the next day with Obama on my mind, only this time I had a tune to put to it.
