"Bush - The Musical". Moser Theatre, Wadham College

Is it allowed to like a play just because all the people in it seem to be extremely nice? There's a lovely feeling of friendship holding Bush - The Musical together. It includes the actors grinning at each other and having fun with their roles, the musicians stifling giggles at the silliness being enacted before them, and even the stage manager turning off the house lights with undeniable charm.

It all feels refreshingly unpretentious, unserious and unimportant, which, given the amount of Arthur Miller and Shakespeare filling term-cards this summer, makes for a welcome change.

The Mollys production company has carved out a special niche for shows that wanna have fun in the often soul-wrenching world of Oxford drama. They were behind Breaking Bod (the story of a reluctant drug dealer set amid the dreaming spires) and The Trail to Oregon (a loving homage to the US-based parody musical maestros StarKid). They've learnt a lot from their performing predecessors, and Bush takes on StarKid at their own game: spinning a delightfully silly story out of well-known events, and filling the show with witty rhymes, faux mistakes, and tongue-in-cheek self-referentiality (like George W. Bush telling Dick Cheney that there's no point in making gun laws one of his policies as it won't mean anything to an Oxford audience). 

Bush follows the life and career of George Dubya. But, well, let's just say this is never going to be the authorised biography. George ends up romantically linked with Dick Cheney, Al Gore is responsible for 9/11, and the narrator is ultimately revealed to be none other than God himself. Along the way, we have an audience singalong of the Queen classic 'We Will Iraq You', a big argument about rock-proof-window-proof rocks, and - out of nowhere because why the hell not - a reenactment of the notorious business card scene from American Psycho.

Everybody involved gets into the spirit. Freddie Houlahan as Cheney skips and cringes with oleaginous delight. Riya Bhattacharjee portrays both Barbara and Laura Bush with a broad but playful brush. Josh Bruton goes gloriously, orbitally over the top as the dastardly, moustache-losing villain Al Gore. Freya Owen and Arthur Bellamy evoke Hades' henchmen Pain and Panic as Gore's minions Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. Wren Talbot-Ponsonby actually tap dances as George Bush the Elder, and Vivi Li genuinely makes George W. more appealing than he ever was in real life. Molly Dineley, central figure of The Mollys company, appropriately plays the omnipotent narrator, with yet another knowingly post-modern wink.

If you're expecting political satire, look elsewhere. This is more panto than polemic.

It's also, to be fair, quite rough and ready. The band is amplified, but the actors aren't, so the singing is occasionally drowned out. There are some extended blackouts for minor scene changes. And, even accepting that Oxford drama budgets are just this side of non-existent, this is the sort of show that would benefit from some real scenery. It feels quite hastily created. But, at the same time, that is also a large part of what makes it work. It's cheap, cheerful and charming.

All of this happens in the unconventional theatrical surroundings of the Claus Moser auditorium at Wadham College. It looks like a subterranean gymnasium with seats, and the audience is sparsely populated. But none of that seems to matter. When the cast members are enjoying themselves this much, it's infectious. Baron Moser himself had an absurd sense of humour: he was a celebrated statistician who claimed to have a lifelong aversion to mathematics. I think he would have approved.