‘Clinton: The musical’ to hit NY stage

NEW YORK: It’s tough being Hillary Clinton. Her book’s a flop, she’s angered ordinary Americans with crass remarks about money and now her husband’s sex life is a New York musical.
The lofty ideals and sordid scandal of the eight-year Clinton White House have been rolled into a two-hour, two-act musical satire making its US premiere in the Big Apple on July 18.
Looked upon affectionately as one of America’s best presidents despite his human flaws, Clinton treads the boards played by two characters: super-smart statesman William and bed-hopping Bill.
“Sunday morning” Bill dreams of universal health care, welfare reform and transforming the United States for the better but “Saturday night Bill” gets sidetracked by womanizing.
Hillary is devastated by his betrayal but props him up and forges her own ambitions while a frisky Monica Lewinsky, Newt Gingrich and prosecutor Kenneth Starr snap at their heels.
“Clinton: the Musical” will be performed at The New York Music Theatre Festival after showing in London and at the Edinburgh Fringe, where it was nominated for best new musical in 2012.
With US politics transfixed by Hillary “will-she-won’t-she” run for president in 2016, the timing is impeccable — not bad for its 26-year-old writer and composer, an Australian PhD student.
Paul Hodge told AFP he was drawn to the Clintons as a couple and as individuals, and looks back to fondly to the 1990s.
“I think Bill Clinton has enormous strengths and also some flaws and I think that’s what endears him to people,” he said.
“Every musical needs to have a love story and it kind of marks a new dynamic, a love story between the two Bills, but also the relationship with Hillary,” Hodge said.
Based in London, he has been in New York for a couple of weeks, re-writing, tweaking and perfecting the music, the lyrics and the jokes. Of 21 songs, only two remain as they were in Britain.