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! The Blair Musical as prime minister, and sits purposefully at his desk to begin work. His wife Cherie then enters to visit, but is indifferently shunted to one side to make way for the entrance of Peter Mandelson, Tony's closest advisor, who is portrayed as a camp and serpentine character and brings a homoerotic element to the Blair story. Bathed in a soft, romantic light, Tony and Peter both tell the audience of their mutual admiration. They exit the stage, leaving a rejected Cherie to sing the poignant "No Me In Tony," a theme which is reprised by various characters throughout the production.