#EdFringe – Trump the Musical – Review

★½

With Trump being a walking joke, this show should have been a slam dunk.

I don’t want to be too pointed, except I do – this was hands down the least strong show I saw at Edinburgh Fringe this year. Crass, crude, like an entire hour of fart jokes, Trump the Musical in theory should have been such an easy thing to parody and rip him a new one. Complete with a badly behaved audience that climbed over seating banks, refused to follow usher instructions on being seated in a nearly full house and one audience member kicking over a fold back amp when he tried to cut across the stage, this was probably my least favourite hour at Edinburgh Fringe (and I have three toes bandaged).

Trump is such a terrible, silly, ridiculous character in real life, and the actions around his presidency have so many terrible and stupid moments to draw from – there’s no need to invent a story line in the future that’s not really believable, though it’s a parody of all the worst possibly scenarios that could happen. This is only one of at least five other shows on at Fringe this year about Trump.

It’s 2020 (next year, so the story line feels silly – set it in 2022 or further to make the storyline seem horrible but not impossible), and Trump is running for re-election (and then this is never mentioned again).  His 280-something-th press secretary can hardly keep a handle on him, and he’s heading off to visit new best friend King Nigel Farrage the First at Trump Buckingham Palace Hotel, because of course in a post Brexit universe, Trump has purchased the palace, the NHS has been sold, there’s a sort of racist sequence around Kim Jong Un and North Korea, and some incredibly poor taste jokes about the Notre Dame fire and handicapped people.

There’s barely a mention of the Trump family, no parody around Ivanka (How good would a weird parody song about all the times Ivanka copies Michelle Obama and then denies it – you heard the idea here first!), and barely any reference to all the horrible real things that could have been parodied.

I don’t remember any songs or tunes, I don’t remember any good jokes, I remember more moments when they audience gasped or groaned or jokes fell flat than proper belly laughs – more like awkward titters and increasingly less enthusiastic applause.  The lyrics aren’t great, the music isn’t particularly inventive, and actually wasn’t that fun to watch. The show is deeply satirical and I get that

At the end of the show, the couple sitting next to me turn to me and go, “Well you’re a reviewer, what did you think? Because that’s an hour we’ll never get back”, and sadly I have to echo the sentiment. I have heard such good things about their other show “Now That’s What I Call Brexit” and that’s possibly because they stuck to the truth and history of the situation and how frankly ridiculous it has gotten, and only deviated to the future for the last few minutes of the show.

I just don’t have a lot nice to say about the show, but unfortunately, when issued a press ticket for free, I’m expected to write and publish my thoughts on the show. I really do wish Blowfish Theatre all the best success in their work, and suggest they look at revising this show and developing it further to get it to the level we all know it can be.

Sadly, not a win for me, which is the same sentiment we wish for the next US election.

Trump the Musical ran at Gilded Balloon Patter Hoose until August 26. More info.