TRUMPAGEDDON at Greenwich Theatre

Many satirise Donald Trump but most fail because the man’s so homophobic, so mysogenistic, so racist, so paranoid and so egotistical that he’s a parody of himself. The latest attempt I’ve seen was Trumpageddon at Greenwich Theatre, a show written and performed by Simon Jay which aimed to out-offend a president who’s already offended a fair proportion of the planet. Rather than aiming for the ultra-smart and reasoned put-downs of such comedic luminaries as John Oliver and Trevor Noah, Jay presented Trump standing at a lectern making a speech in which he unleashed salvo after salvo of foul-mouthed tastelessness – to brilliant effect. It included gleefully outrageous claims about what Trump did to Theresa May in the Oval Office and a fabulously scurrilous analysis of the relationship between the Queen and Meghan Markle. There was a lurid film sequence of a trouserless Trump on the toilet as well as a running gag about his Slovenia-born wife Melania who he repeatedly described as an Estonian called Malaria. And there were plenty of clever, up-to-the-minute references to Putin, the FBI, the recent world leaders’ gathering at Davos, North Korea’s nukes and the president’s mental health. Several audience members were hauled up on to the stage to “help” as a shamelessly priapic Trump spouted sexist messages of hate and Jay bravely invited us all to join a Q&A session in which he improvised with great aplomb. The evening ended with Trump unleashing World War Three when his once-loyal Republican buddies decided to impeach him. This was a fine and consistently very funny dissing of the Donald. If only the real Trump was as smart and amusing…