Deeply unsatisfying: Berlusconi – A New Musical, at Southwark Playhouse Elephant, reviewed

Berlusconi: A New Musical, an excellent title, has opened at a new venue in south London, Southwark Playhouse Elephant. The show begins with the former Italian prime minister preening triumphantly on a white marble set that resembles the Capitol in Rome where Caesar was murdered by rivals who’d grown sick of his power lust. Berlusconi introduces us to his nemesis, a state prosecutor called Ilda Boccassini, who pursues him for years through the courts. With typical coarseness he dismisses her as a ‘haggard old sow’. And yet the pair perform a strange romantic dance that culminates in a bizarre Berlusconi chat-up line: ‘If you weren’t so frigid we’d end up in bed.’ Misogyny is his defining characteristic. Gallantry and charm are alien to him. In flashback scenes we watch his mother advising her young son ‘to do good’ and to become a conqueror. At least he got it half right. He was influenced by his early success as a tenor on a cruise ship where he learned to seduce the female passengers and his hapless backing singers. That experience taught him to view women as trophies, baby-machines or comfort girls. His father was a Fred Trump figure who persuaded his son to move into real estate and helped him make a fortune building blocks of flats in Milan. Berlusconi used his wealth to set up a private TV channel whose content was defiantly vulgar. Berlusconi said he was proud to have added Dallas and topless darts to the cultural wonders of Italy.

The dramatic hook of the show is his prosecution in October 2012 on charges of embezzlement, abuse of public office and so on. He sees the trial as yet another opportunity to dazzle his supporters and he prepares for his court appearance by getting his saggy face injected with enough shots of Botox to fell an elephant.