Writers often say that content dictates form. But it seems less than obvious that a bio-drama about Dennis Skinner, Labour MP for Bolsover from 1970 to 2019, would feature multiple numbers from music hall and Broadway songbooks, as if the Dennis being honoured were the Potter of Pennies from Heaven.
Playwright Kevin Fegan’s rationale is Skinner’s comparison of the Palace of Westminster to a music hall variety venue, and this makes surprising sense. As a parliamentary sketch writer, I was struck that, beneath Skinner’s visceral ex-miner and working-class snarling at Thatcher and Heseltine, there was a twinkle, as if he relished double acts with another big name. Skinner, 90 next month, even earned a variety bill style nickname, The Beast of Bolsover, through defences of workers and the jobless and inventive heckling of the right wings of both his own party and the one opposite.
