Based on a true story, in The Road to Qatar two gay New York Jewish writers are commissioned to write a Broadway style musical for the Emir of Qatar. Having accepted this challenge and hopefully the more than generous fee, they travel from NYC to Dubai, London Bratislava and finally to Qatar.
But things don’t go smoothly since there are language problems and Michael and Jeffrey rely on their Middle East for Dummies guide to help them through.
They have six weeks to create this new musical but the producers constantly change their minds about what the musical should be about and give them a long list of ingredients that have to be included such as 100 British actors, 30 Qatari camels, 20 Arabian stallions, 17 fire-eating Croatian acrobats, 30 Russian ballet dancers and hundreds of falcons and how are they going to fit in Muhammad Ali?
They are given the title ‘Aspire’ and decide to base it on their own passionate love of the Bob Hope and Bing Crosby road show musicals. Major problems arise when they meet Mr Farid, a movie star who is the artistic consultant and he causes major problems. Then there is the camp Italian opera director / choreographer Claudio who puts a spanner in the works.
The versatile cast of five play a multitude of roles, sing and perform with brio, the musical score is spirited and it's all good fun.