A few years ago – four if I recall – I went up to the Edinburgh Festival with a cheque in my pocket from The Guardian, and a slightly mean-spirited mission: to find the worst show of the Fringe and review it for G2. For two weeks I scoured the Festival guide for bad shows – and by God was there some dreck. A show called Tempus Fudge-It was particularly stand-out shit, even though they gave the audience free fudge before it started.

But it was on my last day that I hit pay-dirt – a show called Out of Your Mind, by a group of Cambridge chums called The Uncertainty Division. I won’t bore you with the details, save to say that it was improv, by students and therefore guaranteed to be dreadful.

Except it wasn’t. It was brilliant. Really, really funny. So funny, in fact, that I convinced my Guardian paymasters to allow me to review it in lieu of the garbage I’d been sent to find. See here.

Two of the Uncertainty Division players – James Lark and James Aylett – stood out in particular, so much so that a few years later, at The Friday Project, we published their guide to the Fringe, the brilliantly titled ‘Fringe’. But while James Aylett (I’m sure he won’t mind me saying) chose to keep the theatre as his second career (he’s now CTO at Tango Zebra, the ad technology company that’s now owned by Google), James Lark decided that – hey diddledy dim – it was an actor/writer’s life for him.

And so it was that this evening Pond and I went to see a preview of his latest work, Tony Blair: The Musical. Which, as you will have guessed, is a musical about Gordon Brown.

And you know what? He’s bloody done it again. Like my first exposure to James all those years ago, and his talent notwithstanding, the show should have been dreadful. Political satire never works in musical theatre. Never. Theatre about George Bush never works. Ever. And musicals are so hard to pull off that only an idiot would try. Combine those three factors and – Jesus – the only result can be a train wreck.

I should have learnt my lesson the first time.

By God, it was brilliant.

I mean properly, incredibly brilliant.

The songs – taken purely as songs, not even as pieces of comedy – were excellent to the point that I’m listening them on iTunes as I write this. The jokes were – I exaggerate not – the funniest Blair/Bush gags ever set to song (are you listening The News Revue?) and while the cast were so excellent and gifted with near-perfect comedy timing that it’s almost unfair to mention any by name, Nathan Kiley’s portrayal of Tony Blair stands out as being better even than David Cameron’s. And as for the scene with David Blunkett, a glove puppet and the Millennium Dome… oooh yes. Oh God yes.

You know the plot, so I won’t bore you further, and there’ll be a proper review on Fridaycities on Monday. But in the meantime, just get yourself to the final preview this evening (Sunday 29th) at The Space, Mudchute or book a ticket to Edinburgh and hightail it to the Gilded Balloon from 3rd August. Details of both venues here.

Go.

Serrrious.