The Last Temptation of Boris Johnson: an interview with actor Will Barton

Jonathan Maitland’s smash hit comedy, which sold out its London run, is now on tour and stops off at Devonshire Park Theatre from Monday to Saturday, March 9-14.

Will Barton, who plays the iconic, wild-haired Prime Minister, explains that the play begins with arguably the most important dinner in recent British history, one in Islington in February 2016.

“The first half is based around this dinner that actually did happen,” Will explains. “This was a dinner where Boris Johnson invited Evgeny Lebedev, the owner of the Evening Standard; Michael Gove and his wife Sarah Vine, the Daily Mail columnist.”

“He was even hoping that Liz Hurley might turn up, curiously enough,” he laughs.

As Will says, this was a meal in which Boris considered whether he should join Leave or stay with Remain ahead of the EU referendum.

“Boris was in a bit of a quandary and the play explores this in very, very comical, farcical terms. We even have the spirits of Lady Thatcher, Winston Churchill and Tony Blair visiting him.”

The Spirits of Prime Ministers past, if you will.

“That’s the fictional bit,” Will clarifies, explaining that Boris receives some rather supernatural advice as the evening goes on.

“Tony Blair is saying ‘Remain! Remain! Look how well we’re doing within. It would be madness to leave. Thatcher is saying leave. Churchill is advising him to go for it.”

“It gets more and more fun,” he continues. “You’ve got Churchill, Thatcher and Blair all arguing with each other with Boris looking sort of confused in between. And the second half is very funny but I cannot give away the really funny about turns that happen when it goes ten years into the future.”

“It’s a good night out,” Will continues. “It’s of great interest for people of a political persuasion, as well as people that just like really great comedy and dead ringer impersonations. The impersonations are great from everyone. Emma Davies as Thatcher is fantastic, Tim Waller as Tony Blair and Huw Edwards, who’s there doing interviews as well – we have interviews with Huw Edwards – and Bill Champion as Michael Gove and Winston Churchill.”

And those with Brexit fatigue will be pleased that the drama isn’t just based around this one issue.

“The play really is about ambition more that Brexit,” Will explains. “Boris actually did say when he was kid that he wanted to be King of the World, and the best way of becoming, or the only way really of becoming King of the World was that he could become Prime Minister, so that was always his goal.”

Interestingly, after researching Boris, Will believes that the current PM was wasn’t really expecting a Leave win in the Brexit referendum: “That was a bit of a shock to him. He was hoping to have a glorious defeat.”

It’s all up for debate, of course, but after the resignation of David Cameron in 2016, Boris did rule himself out of that Tory leadership race and we got Theresa May instead.

Research has continued throughout the play’s run and, thanks to the chaotic events of the past few years, especially 2019, there have been more than a few changes to the production. The show’s promotional material even boasts that the script will be updated nightly if necessary.

“Originally, when we did the play last year at the Park Theatre in London, Boris wasn’t Prime Minister and in that version he never gets to be Prime Minster, he’s tried four times to become Prime Minister. Obviously, with the reality that he is now Prime Minister we deal with that but, you know, misfortune can strike at any time and with Boris Johnson you never know what’s around the corner.

The second half fast-forwards to post-Brexit Britain in 2029.

“Things haven’t gone quite the way he anticipated so he needs the help of these spirits again,” says Will, hinting that the PM’s imagined future involves all sorts of amusing shenanigans.

“He’s of pensionable age, he’s still battling with Huw Edwards,” Will adds as an example. “In our version him and Huw Edwards aren’t great mates. I have no idea how they really feel about each other but in our version we have them really combating against each other. We have these three interviews, which are great fun.”

Audiences have responded well to the new material and the team have started making little regional jokes too, depending on where they are performing.

“When I was in Malvern I suddenly found myself in the middle of the interview with Huw Edwards,” Will says. “Boris is trying to defend what’s happening post-Brexit and he says this thing about Malvern. ‘Malvern’s taking off like a rocket’ – because they’re local people – ‘Malvern, the home of...water!’ They just loved that.”

“I’m now just racking my brain thinking I’m going to have to come up with something for everywhere.”

“It’s all written by Jonathan Maitland,” Will continues. “But he’s very free. You riff a bit and you suggest something to John and he goes ‘yes’ or ‘no’, or he comes up with something and says ‘I want to put this in’, and we discuss it.”

Will feels that he knows Boris quite well now. He’s been with The Last Temptation... since last year and before that he played him in Theresa v Boris: How May Became PM (2017), a part current affairs, part drama programme for BBC Two.

“It was about the leadership battle, post Brexit,” Will says of the docudrama, which mixed interviews with real footage and dramatised scenes. “There was a bit of humour in it and I had a week for that, whereas in this I’ve actually gone for dying my hair. I’ve got full proper Boris hair so I’m walking around a bit like Boris on the streets of London.”

“I worked very much in this case from the outside in,” he says, when he’s asked about how he plays Boris. “I work on how he speaks, trying to replicate that as accurately as possible. And it’s his body language, how he walks, how he moves, where his eyes go, how he interacts with people. I then just let that happen naturally and then I can access the internal Boris through that. I did a lot of YouTube stuff of him, you know, bits of research on what he was like, but the research is really done by the writer John Maitland. My job is to interpret that and do the Boris that we have in this fictional, fun account.”

“I’ve got to say, I find him quite easy to switch into,” he laughs. “So make of that what you will.”

So what’s the most interesting aspect of Boris’s character?

“I think he sails close to the wind,” Will states. “He’s very spontaneous. He is calculated in thinking things through and he is calculated about what he wants. He’s focused on that but at the same time he’s very chaotic and he likes taking risks. I think he gets a hit out of it and that’s a lot of fun to play.”

For example, Boris might say something people object to and later admit that he shouldn’t have said it.

“He isn’t always the measured politician, but the British people quite like that, I think.”

“Thatcher was the lady who’s not for turning – Boris certainly is for turning,” he laughs. “At one point he was saying we’ll never leave the single market and now he’s saying ‘we’ve got to get out’. But that was way before Brexit to be fair to him.”

“He’s a larger-than-life, fun chaotic person and a lot of people hate him as well,” Will says, explaining that their portrayal isn’t one-dimensional at all. “In this play we have a Boris the private man and then Boris in interview, Boris with his friends, Boris with his wife Marina, Boris on his own and they’re all very different Borises so you see different facets of his character.”

“It’s very different otherwise it would just get tedious. If you just have Boris being full-on ‘Boris’ for the whole thing you go ‘okay, well, I can see that in a sketch show’. This goes deeper.”

So has performing in this play influenced Will’s opinion of Boris at all?

“Whoever you play – Ghandi or Peter Sutcliffe – you have to represent them from their point of view, so I’ll always represent and try to justify what I’m doing, whatever it is in the play. But whether I’ve changed my view about the real Boris... he is a larger-than-life character and he’s fun to play, so it’s a nuanced opinion.”

“I think he’d be a lot of fun to have a drink with. I think he’d be good fun, but some people are very angry that he’s become Prime Minister – that I know,” Will laughs. “But that’s not for me to judge. I’m neither pro nor anti him at all in myself, but I do very much enjoy playing him. It’s been an absolute hoot and it’s great to get inside this man’s head.”

The show starts at 7.45pm each night with Wednesday and Saturday matinees at 2.30pm. Tickets cost £19-£26.50 with concessions and group discounts available. Call the box office on 01323 412000 or purchase tickets online at www.eastbournetheatres.co.uk.

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