10 August 2025
Let’s get the massive elephant in the room out of the way first. With in-yer-face promotional photos and posters of multi award-winning writer/performer Henry Naylor sporting OTT sequin glasses and feathers-a-go-go – resembling a cut-price Elton John tribute act – you’d expect this new play to feature quite a lot of Elton. But surprisingly, the authentic voice of Reg Dwight hardly features in this otherwise excellent true-life play about Britain’s biggest ever libel trial. In fact, we get to hear more from Elton’s mum than the man himself as the super soaraway The Sun newspaper prints ever more outrageous accusations against her son, then riding high as one of Britain’s greatest ever recording artists and national treasures. Diehard fans of The Rocketman – and I count myself among them – have to make do with his singles playing as we file in to the theatre. Is that enough?
What Henry Naylor has come up with with instead is a brilliant examination of Fleet Street at a pivotal moment in the history of British journalism. It’s a glorious take down – or should that be shakedown? – of The Sun’s foul mouthed firebrand editor Kelvin Mackenzie, whose favourite term of endearment – and abuse – was CUNT! His ignominious tenure at The Sun included publishing such porkies as the Max Clifford-brokered FREDDIE STARR ATE MY HAMSTER front page to GOTCHA! (when the British Navy sunk the Arentinian shop BELGRANO during the Falklands War), ZIP ME UP BEFORE YOU GO GO! (George Michael’s arrest for indecency in a public lavatory) and ELTON IN VICE BOYS SCANDAL, the subject of this new one-man play.
Naylor has crafted a fascinating look inside the newsroom of The Sun during the decade when it was at its most powerful and feared, and it could be seen as a companion piece to James Graham’s 2017 play INK, which was set in 1969 ad charted the creation of The Sun when the establishment outsider and much under estimated, Australian sheep farmer Rupert Murdoch bought a failing UK broadsheet newspaper and transformed it into the bratish comic-like tabloid newspaper that more than any other shaped the nature of modern Britain.
The 1980s was the era when the red top tabloids reigned supreme in the UK media – but trust in them was also starting to erode. Murdoch was cock of the walk, feted by all political parties and feared by the rich and famous. The Sun printed millions of copies a day and an endorsement by them would win elections.
I worked in newspapers at that time, including the Sunday Mirror in Fleet Street, so I observed hacks and editors at their very worst, chasing ever more outlandish stories and scandals, and fuelling the anti-gay hysteria when AIDS surfaced.
It was into this atmosphere that Kelvin Mackenzie got hold of a story about a rent boy turned pimp – Graham X – and Elton and didn’t let the facts get in the way of a sensational front page. He didn’t check the facts; the story was “a ferret” in fact a bag of ferrets – the best kind and he ignored pleas from his underlings to check it thoroughly, or have it legalled. If he had he’d have soon discovered that Elton was in fact in America on the date in question in the accusation. The Sun’s bitter rival The Daily Mirror got hold of the rent boy and ran his version of the story. McKenzie then didn’t apologise but instead doubled down running more anti-Elton stories including one that the star had mutilated his guard dogs so their barking wouldn’t disturb him. That was the straw that broke the camel’s back and the rock star sued, quickly receiving a £1million settlement.
Naylor voices many role here s, some better than others, including a sewer full of tabloid journalists (he really does look the part of a seedy hack), a benign older female journalist who has seen it all before, Mackenzie, Elton’s mum, rent boys, but I really can’t believe the naïve young hack at the centre of the tale would have ever gotten a job at The Sun or even attended morning story conference. He would have been burnt toast within a day or two.
Monstering the Rocketman is a riveting tale of celebrity excess and press ethics that had me laughing out loud, and has won Naylor yet another Scotsman Fringe First for its writing.
The media world may have changed beyond recognition since the events described here, but The Sun is still at it today – I have first hand experience. About a year before he died, a Sun writer concocted a totally fictional interview with David Bowie about one of my clients and it ran as a page lead in the Bizarre column under a 49pt headline. When I confronted the hack he just shrugged his shoulders and laughed. Absolutely shameless. Don’t let the facts get in the way of a good story!
