Thatcher! The Musical

Newcastle CF went to see Thatcher! The Musical on Thursday 1st March at Newcastle's Northern Stage. It was a thoroughly entertaining night and the musical was brilliant - even if we didn't always agree with how things were being portrayed. One thing that struck us was how well all of the women playing Margaret Thatcher pulled off her voice - it was very convincing.

The musical begins with Margaret Thatcher appearing in a giant handbag - Narrator Maggie as she is known in the programme - and guides us through her life from birth until the present day. There are nine different Maggies dressed in attire that resembles the point in her life that was being focused upon: for example during the Falklands War scene (Military Maggie) she was dressed in a camouflage dress.

At one point one even comes around to play the audience - Gordon, one of our members fell victim but was looked upon kindly as Britannia Maggie said he had a "soft voice". Unfortunately Naima didn't get off so lightly and was told she was "dressed like she was French". It was all light-hearted fun however - and the quips about Tony Blair were good too.

The play provoked mixed reactions upon us all - Keir stating that he thought it was "pretty well balanced" and that "a lot of people wouldn't pay money to see a play that was too pro-Thatcher for various reasons. Considering it had to appeal to as wide an audience as was possible it was fairly flattering towards her." Others remain more sceptical, Barney was particularly disappointed at the portrayal of her character, of which he thought it was pretty much against her.
Hopefully we'll have a few more opinions from members up here soon, but in the mean time a few songs can be downloaded from the website:
http://www.thatcherthemusical.co.uk/audio.html