TONY! The Blair Musical the Pleasance Theatre, Islington, for a limited run in late September 2007. The production returned to the Edinburgh Fringe in August 2008, alongside its sequel "Tony of Arabia". Previews were performed at the Oxford North Wall and the Theatre Royal, Wakefield, in July 2008. The production begins with a news reporter announcing the fall of Tony Blair, before the erstwhile prime minister is carried onstage, funeral-style, by four pallbearers, to melancholic chants of "Tony!". He is then thrown to the ground to the crash of a drum fill, where he begins to sing the opening number, "Tony's Entrance," in which
Tony Blair and, more controversially, the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Blair has faced criticism for his role in the invasion of Iraq, including calls for having him tried for war crimes and waging a war of aggression; in 2016, the Iraq Inquiry criticised his actions and described the invasion as unjustified and unnecessary. Blair was succeeded as Leader of the Labour Party and as Prime Minister by Gordon Brown in June 2007. On the day that Blair resigned as Prime Minister, he was appointed the official Special Envoy of the Quartet on the Middle East, an office which he held until May