Major the musical a 'hoax'

A CD of "songs from the musical" was created

A planned theatre musical about the life of former Tory prime minister John Major has been disclosed as a hoax.

BBC Radio 4's Today programme discovered that ITV2's spoof entertainment show Gatecrashers had made up the story after one of its reporters became suspicious.

The show was said to chart the politician's rise from a school drop-out to the corridors of power and was hoped to arrive in London's West End early next year.

In revealing the truth, Gatecrashers said that their Major musical story was intended as a joke but also as an attempt to expose sloppy journalism.

Ian Duncan was said to be playing the role of John Major

A spokeswoman for ITV2 told the Today programme's Martin Bedford: "Gatecrashers plays on the modern phenomenon of gatecrashing and bragging.

"The programme is done in the same way as Noel Edmonds' Gotcha Oscars - it's tongue-in-cheek. But it's not looking to do anything dishonest."

On Thursday, the musical was announced to news agencies under the title Major to Minor.

The show's "spokesman" Guy Phillips described the show as a "classic rags-to-riches story" complete with rap songs and "touching" ballads.

"He (Mr Major) had two parents who were circus performers and he's managed to make his way to Number 10," Phillips said.

'Strange'

Major was prime minister from 1990 to 1997, leading the country through the Gulf War and the Maastricht Treaty and played a key role in the Northern Ireland peace process.

Phillips said the musical would include 14 musical numbers. A CD of four songs was distributed to journalists to back up the hoax.

Actor Ian Duncan was also said to have been lined up to play the former prime minister.

The Today programme's Martin Beford said on the show on Friday morning that he thought Major to Minor had "sounded good but strange".

"We were going to have the musicians come into the studio to play Into the Blue - the theme song from the show," he told Today presenter John Humphrys .

Hoax

But, he added, when the musical's producers were unable to provide him with lyrics in advance, he began to smell a rat.

He rang the actors' union Equity, theatre producers and Ian Duncan's agent.

But it was what Bedford described as a "throw-away comment" from one of those people about a previous event in Henley organised by the same company that led him to the truth.

The "company" was said to be organising the 2001 British lap dancing championships in the respectable Berkshire town.

This too had turned out to be a hoax by Gatecrashers, which managed to catch out the Today programme with its story.

'Silly stories'

Bedford therefore knew of the supposed company and the man behind it, Phillip Waterman.

And when Bedford called Guy Phillips about the musical, he and Waterman turned out to be the same man, exposing the hoax.

However Gatecrashers' producers say they have no intention of stopping their tricks.

"They say it's just a bit of fun and that they are only doing silly stories," said Bedford.

"They say they are going to do more spoofs. The moral of the story is that journalists should check their facts - which they should do anyway.

"The public should not believe everything they read and hear."