The Confessions of Gordon Brown

… Ambassadors Theatre, Covent Garden

This play by Kevin Toolis doesn’t concern itself at all with Gordon Brown’s disastrous period as chancellor of the exchequer but focuses on his over-weening ambition to be prime minister and the complete hash he made of that job.

‘Gordon Brown hilariously exposes the darkest secrets of being Prime Minister, the stab-in-the-back plottings, the betrayals and most importantly - the hair gel’ says the play’s website. ‘Love him or loathe him, Gordon Brown was our greatest failure at being Prime Minister in 200 years. In a candid portrait of life inside Downing Street, Gordon at last reveals what it takes to knife your way to the top and rule a nation. And how his dream of power all went wrong.’

Hilarious? I found few laughs in this monologue. Love hime or loathe him? Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair were loved and loathed: Gordon Brown was a politician whom some may have respected but surely no-one loved.

I agree with the thrust of Simon Edge's review in The Express when the play first came to London last September (since when it might have changed a little) and the conclusion: ‘As it can’t decide whether it’s political history, satire or human tragedy, it falls unsatisfyingly between the three’.

I can only be grateful that Gordon Brown seems to have chosen to have shunned the limelight since he walked out of Downing Street with his family four years ago. Long may this deluded, damaged and deranged human being enjoy a private life well away from the public gaze.