Was it a cigar or a phallus?

Edna Welthorpe (Mrs) would not have enjoyed the post-show discussion following the Whingers’ visit to the Vaudeville Theatre to see a preview of What the Butler Saw for the Whingers found themselves mired in struggles to recall the ins and outs of Winston Churchill’s private member vis a vis the Lord Chamberlain.

The conversation came about because what’s produced at the end of this production is quite clearly a dildo designed to provide added pleasure (to whom we couldn’t say) courtesy of some wishful anatomical thinking on someone’s part. It makes absolutely no sense as it is quite clearly not the remaining part of a statue of Winston Churchill – either cigar or a penis – as hinted in the text.

According to John Lahr’s biography Joe Orton “originally wanted Churchill’s penis to be displayed; but the Lord Chamberlain would not allow it… His producer Oscar Lewenstein… had predicted the cut on the grounds of libel”. Of course, by the time WTBS was finally staged Orton was dead and the Lord Chamberlain’s interference in what appeared on the London stage was over.

But anyway, the point is, it would have been funniest with the cigar and less funny with a statue’s phallus, the use of a dildo is just nonsensical.

Anyhoo… Libidinous psychiatrist Dr Prentice (Tim McInnerny) attempts to turn his examination couch into a casting couch when he interviews a potential new secretary (Mrs David Tennant Georgia Moffett) and then keep this misdemeanor from his nymphomaniac wife (Samantha Bond). The shenanigans that result are as bonkers as one might anticipate in the land of farce: expect generous dollops of rushing through doors, semi and totally undressed characters and much inadvertent cross-dressing.

There is also almost as here about madness, deception, medication, self-medicated whisky-swilling, familial bickering and making-up as there is in Long Day’s Journey into Night (another posthumously first-produced play – that’s two in a month. What are the chances?). And who would think Orton had so many parallels with O’Neill? But then again, these are probably what they call “universal themes” in the papers of record.

It’s all hugely politically incorrect; there are gags about lunacy, rape, incest and buggery. And who these days – unless of course you are in fact Carol Thatcher reading this – would dare utter the ‘G’ word? Fortunately Sean Foley has directed the cast to make sure most of it keeps us laughing.

It is played to the hilt, albeit occasionally over the top which is not necessarily an altogether bad thing in the circumstances.

McInnerny’s Prentice displays wonderfully frantic desperation as he heaps one deceit on top of another; the lunatic is running the asylum despite having no real patients.

Samantha Bond teeters around gamely in high heels, but it’s not only her feet that are arched; her Bond-by-name Bond-by-nature (not to mention Miss Moneypenny) credentials suggest she’s taken the baton from Roger Moore by turning the raised eyebrow into an artform.

Omid Djalili‘s Dr Rance is rather shouty but convincingly self-deluded and gets some huge laughs, none more so than when he corpsed (although we hope this has not since evolved into learned rewarded behaviour); he also got the biggest round in the curtain call.

Nick Hendrix‘s bellboy and Jason Thorpe‘s police sergeant suffer the twin indignities of spending much of the evening in their underpants or women’s clothing splendidly and there’s similar suffering from Moffett who is excellent as the prospective secretary Geraldine Barclay.

But the play’s the thing and if its desire to shock has lost some of its flavour on the bedpost over the decades Orton’s subversive cynicism and hilarious use of language still shines through.

We saw this ages ago during a preview and were rather surprised when the reviews were so generally sniffy. We still think it’s a four and better than the last version we saw at the National Theatre many moons ago despite its rather starry cast: John Alderton, Richard Wilson, Nicola Paget and a then almost unknown Mr Georgia Moffett. Of course that was back in the days when the National could still be bothered to rustle up a proper theatre poster.

Rating

Sounds like Alan Ayckbourn territory, doesn’t it? Except we’re in Detroit. Except we’re not: we’re in “a ‘first-ring’ suburb of a mid-sized American city’.

If anything it’s closer to Bruce Norris’ Clybourne Park (which incidentally beat Lisa D’Amour‘s shortlisted play to the Pulitzer Prize) than to Ayckbourn.

Ben (Stuart McQuarrie) and Mary (Justine Mitchell) have invited new neighbours Kenny (Will Adamsdale) and Sharon (Clare Dunne) round for a bit of grilling.

For some reason Ben would rather be English. Perhaps D’Amour does want to be Ayckbourn after all? Ben has lost his job and when he’s not fiddling around building a website to support his new business idea he lights the barbie.

Phil was having a field day. There was so much food on stage and apparent cooking going on it was hard to concentrate* on the play. How did the barbecue work? Raw steaks went in and the lid was closed; cooked steaks came out and were eaten. Phil thought he saw a lever pulled. Was it a specially designed stage device to effect this sleight of barbie? Very clever.

But there was even more than stage trickery to impress the casual Cottesloe visitor.

On top of that it also pulled off a couple of coups de theatre (make that three if you count the steaks, which we do). The first was that almost impossible stage trick of having an over-extended party (in this case with only four characters) which Austin Pendleton directs to make it actually look like a party. The final coup is a scenic trick (design Kevin Depinet) that it would be churlish to spoil.

D’Amour’s comedy is also very funny.

The neighbours probably wouldn’t become friends in normal circumstances nor ours. Mary would be OK (she likes a glass or two) but Sharon and Kenny turn up for the alfresco dining with a bottle of Dr Pepper (which wouldn’t see them invited back to any Whingers’ barbecues) but then they did meet in rehab so we’d have to say “No, no, no”.

If American-lives-going-wonky is an overdone theme there’s still enough to engage. With its barbies, rehab, redundancy, camping trips, copious drinking, conflagrations and neighbourliness Phil saw yet another parallel: a roughed up version of Desperate Housewives.

Rather fun.

*Footnote:  Detroit ran at 1 hour 50 minutes without an interval so there was no chance to call an usher and stop the woman in the third row who was texting throughout the play. It’s pretty dismal the National staff or someone seated near her didn’t seem to do anything about it. Phil felt inspired to take up Mark Shenton’s cudgels but couldn’t locate her after the show. His mistake was searching for someone who looked like Bianca Jagger.

Rating

Not wishing to be pilloried yet again for being culturally insensitive, the Whingers chickened out of using their tickets for Black T-Shirt Collection in case they didn’t like it and said so. So they gave them to their friend Nina instead: 

When the offer of two tickets came up to see the Black T-Shirt Collection, I quickly conducted the obligatory Google research, watched a brief snippet of the show, then snapped up the offer.

Having arranged for a friend to join I explained we’d be watching a 70 minute monologue written and performed by Nigerian born Inua Ellams. I’d read that on the net.

Ten minutes into the performance my friend and I were both pulling faces, throwing conspicuous frowns at each other, puzzled that we weren’t finding any of the jokes funny.

My friend suggested we leave. I told her we weren’t allowed to as I’d promised to write a review for the WEW. So we remained in our seats, becoming increasingly mystified by the guffaws of laughter coming from some sections of the audience.

Forcing myself to concentrate on the storyline I attempted to ignore my friend, leaning forward awkwardly in my uncomfortable seat trying hard to feign interest.

The sound of a mobile phone vibrating triggered an impressive reflex action that sent my hand flying into my handbag. The horror and shame of being the annoying theatre goer was quickly dispelled and I heaved relief on finding that my phone was switched off. But despair quickly replaced relief as I managed to knock over my cup of gin and tonic in the frantic process. This was very bad news as I was dependant on the alcohol as a sedative to ease the irritation caused by Ellam’s annoying hyper-pronunciation.

The story is about a Nigerian Christian lad adopted into a Muslim family. Muslim and Christian foster brothers have a complicated affair whilst working to set up their ‘Black t-shirt Collection’ company which takes them round the world. Travelling to Morocco, London and China they end up with child slave labour blood on their hands.

I tried keeping up with biblical Matthew and Islamic Mohamed. I tried keeping pace with their confusion over their religiously bound sexuality and with their hip-hopping around the world.

I stayed wearily to the end, as I felt Ellam deserved applause for his admirable use of descriptive prose. I’d rather have read the script than seen it performed. I award him a black t-shirt mark for failing to capture my attention with his delivery, which was more literary and less dramatic than I would have liked.

Rating

One glass of WEW whine and that only to replace my spilt gin and tonic.

So it’s a shame that in I Dreamed a Dream the odd, socially awkward Susan Boyle has been replaced with an “inner” Susan Boyle and that Elaine C Smith – while in possession of an excellent singing voice – is not a singing sensation.

The result is the rather pedestrian story of an ordinary woman with an ordinary life who (eventually) wins a talent competition and becomes famous.

There is a lovely sequence set in a local club in which – in terrifying echoes of Andrew’s youth – people dance the Slosh to “Una Paloma Blanca” and Andy Gray does a quite accomplished turn as an overly entertaining karaoke host. But this has only very occasional moments of joy and/or inventiveness – notably a toe-tapping rendition of “Stuck in the Middle with You” by a line of Britain’s Got Talent contestants waiting to go on.

You know you’re in trouble when the cast have to dance on with coloured balloons indicating happiness. They were singing “Perfect Day” anyway, even Phil had got the gist of that one.

But the really tantalising (to us) stuff is only alluded to: the surreality of Demi Moore’s involvement in sending Ms Boyle “viral” and the idea that far from rubbing their hands with glee the BGT mandarins were panicking over the loss of control over an otherwise well-engineered story.

And anyway, this is all so 2009. It is time for the story of a slightly socially awkward canine who becomes a global sensation. Come on Elaine C Smith. Pull your finger out and get the wardrobe working on that giant dog out outfit.

That will get the Whingers back to Southend which is where we saw I Dreamed a Dream at the Cliffs Pavillion and ate chips in a hut on the prom which was awesome.

Oh, and no the real Susan Boyle didn’t pop up at the end which according to the poster she “is expected to appear at all performances subject to unforeseen circumstances.” Unforeseen by whom is not clear. Appearing on the BGT final as it happened. So not unforeseen after all.

Rating

History shall record that Eugene O’Neil’s life and works were not in vain then. His famously long autobiographical drama about a dysfunctional family (which he didn’t want published until 25 years after his death and never, ever performed) has served at least one useful purpose.

Phil’s take on it did not dwell on its depictions of hard drinking. For him it came across more as a surprising prototypical Carry On Spying. MI6 could easily have recruited any of the Tyrone family. They are forever lurking and listening. They would twitch the curtains if they bothered to put some up. They are always watching each other or their neighbours through the window or suspiciously checking the level of the whisky or listening at doors or keeping an eye on what mother is up to by pretending to be asleep or following her movements when she’s stomping around upstairs. And then there’s the eavesdropping on telephone conversations…

Rupert Murdoch would probably like this. Especially as Anthony Page has cut the text judiciously and directed it at such a pace (and with such overlaps) as to ensure that it doesn’t live up to its title and go on longer than the Leveson Inquiry.

Phil had seen it once before with Jack Lemmon and those American beauties Kevin Spacey and Peter Gallagher but remembers little of it other than the thrill of seeing the star of his favourite film (Some Like It Hot) on stage.

The Tyrones are also always watching what they say to each other (albeit mostly unsuccessfully) as they try not to keep secrets from each other. Along with the copious spirits knocked back there are so many ghosts from the past that Sally Morgan would be in a fair old tizzy.

Actor and tightwad James Tyrone (David Suchet) performed as the Count of Monte Cristo 6000 times which makes Yul Brynner’s mere 4,500 plus turns as the King in the King and I seem piffling (what happened to stars doing long runs? These days you’re lucky if they last longer than 12 weeks). Mother Mary (Laurie Metcalf) has insomnia exacerbated by the twin foghorns of a boat at sea and her husband’s snoring.

O’Neill based the play on his own family: their home was apparently called Monte Cristo Cottage after his father’s own acting marathon. Well, you have to get your inspiration from somewhere. Heck, even Coronation Street‘s current storyline; a reaction against a proposed lap-dancing bar on the cobbles with a street in bloom competition suggests one of the writers saw London Road.

The Tyrone’s home was surely a model for the Betty Ford Clinic; they’re all addicted either to morphine or alcohol, though little sign of any of them making recoveries. Sounds impossibly dreary doesn’t it?

Amazingly it’s not. It’s incredibly absorbing. The play received the Pulitzer Prize which –  as Rent and I Am My Own Wife hadn’t at that point – wasn’t the insult it is today.

They’re a funny bunch the Tyrones; rather likeable in their own peculiar way. One minute doling out affection and concern, the next screaming and shouting in a can’t live-with’em, can’t-live-without-’em fashion, but the cast deliver the goods so well it’s all very watchable. Trevor White and Kyle Soller as the sons James Jr and the TB afflicted Edmund are terrific. So is Suchet. Even the family maid Rosie Sansom makes an impression by lightening the load with some much needed laughs.

Then there’s Metcalf, drifting in and out of her addled mind before morphine morphs her into Miss Haversham. In lesser hands this could have seemed ridiculous but she’s utterly convincing and never puts a foot wrong. But it’s a testament to the others that despite her barely appearing after the interval the play doesn’t loses its momentum.

Frankly, we had wondered if this might be a bit of a slog but were extremely keen to see Metcalf as we’d loved her so much on the telly in Rosanne (and more latterly guesting as Sheldon’s mother in The Big Bang Theory). She didn’t disappoint. Expect at least one Olivier award. Phil went as far to say he could happily sit through it again (hopefully without the man behind him yawning extravagantly throughout Act 4) and he really wasn’t expecting to think that.

The only downer really is the curiously non-climactic ending as though O’Neill couldn’t really decide where to end it and just suddenly realised that it was already longer than any sensible theatregoer could reasonably be expected to sit still for.

Rating

The Sunshine Boys has a most pungent, room-clearing whiff of someone having a laugh at the Whingers’ expense. Would it prove a bit too close to home (a retirement one of course) for them?

Prolific Neil Simon‘s 1972 play arrives at the Savoy Theatre with an eagerly-anticipated USP: Danny DeVito making his West End stage debut as an old vaudevillian Willie Clark.

Cast opposite him the altogether less diminutive Richard Griffiths as his former stage partner Al Lewis (didn’t he play Grandpa in The Munsters?) and you might believe you’re almost Twins-set for a perfect match.

Lewis and Clark were a successful act nicknamed The Sunshine Boys but they haven’t spoken to each other for for years; they didn’t even speak to each other off-stage during the last year of their act.

CBS invites them to unite for a TV special but can Clark’s nephew Ben (Adam Levy) convince his uncle to put aside his resentments against his former stage partner for them to appear together for one last time?

We’re not giving much away by saying “of course he can” but heavens, Act One is a long old slog getting there.

Now, preview performance and all that and there are no complaints about how much DeVito you get for your buck: his is by far the largest role (Griffiths doesn’t appear until half an hour in). The problem is the play which – like Lewis and Clark’s act – feels terribly dated.

What happened to Neil Simon? Is it us? We used to find him funny but struggled to wring any entertainment value out of his Prisoner of Second Avenue and here that struggle became almost mortal combat. We wanted to laugh, yet barely cracked more than a few smiles before the interval. Andrew struggled with consciousness despite a handful of the audience howling with laughter around him. Phil’s mind wandered off as he admired the realistic condensation effects on the windows of Hildegard Bechtler’s convincingly rundown hotel apartment set and wondered if the over-ripe banana sitting in the fruit bowl was intended as a metaphor.

Act Two is better, but largely because it’s shorter. We get to see them perform their “legendary” doctor sketch with lots of daft medical jokes and letching at a buxom nurse until it all goes terribly wrong which unfortunately is before we get to see the three pounds of liver promised by the shopping list of props recited in Act 1. Apparently three pounds of liver is funnier than two and two even more hilarious than one (in Neil Simon’s mind anyway). Who knew? The business of comedy is a steep learning curve.

Strangely the funniest scene was the one that comes immediately after DeVito and Griffiths perform their schtick. An ailing and bed-ridden Clark spars with his sassy nurse played by Johnnie Fiori and both are superb here: DeVito is at his best but Fiori almost steals the show, getting it spot on as she gives as good as she gets.

On the plus side the play’s resolve is handled deftly and Simon clearly had the good sense not to resort to overt sentimentality. For this we must be grateful.

Hopefully director Thea Sharrock will make cuts to Act One or they’ll pick up the pace before press night, but when Andrew confesses his highlights are seeing Tyne Daly and Rhea Perlman (Carla in Cheers, Mrs DeVito in real life) in the audience you know something must be wrong.

Rating

No, it was one of those occasions where everyone was coming up with ideas for unusual things he could do on the actual day. Phil suggested he stayed in and blew the dust off that anthology of Harold Pinter he gave him several birthdays ago. Some hope. (In case you’re interested, he ended up spending it with Nancy Lam)

But if Andrew ever feels despondent about his advancing years he can always instantly feel 20 years younger for the price of a theatre ticket – at least for as long as Top Hat runs.

The Whingers were feeling almost nubile amongst the Aldwych crowd. When Phil stood up before the show started to see how many were in the orchestra pit (15 for the record) a shrinking mittel-European lady behind him tapped him on the shoulder and anxiously enquired, “I hope you’re not going to keep standing up during ze show”.

When you think about it, it’s rather a surprise that Top Hat - which is based on the classic RKO film – hasn’t been done on stage before. The logical solution was to supplement the few songs in the film with an extra 10 from Irving Berlin‘s mostly wonderful and overflowing back catalogue.

The plot is as agreeably daffy as one might expect; American dancer and part time stalker Jerry Travers (Tom Chambers) comes to London to star in a show, spends most of the day of his opening night running round London before heading off to the theatre after 5pm so that he can meet his fellow performers for the first time. How the cast of this show must laugh at the plot. Judging by the precision of their routines there’s little sign they’ve been out hijacking horse-drawn carriages rather than rehearsing all day.

Travers persues Dale Tremont’s (Summer Strallen) affections after she comes up to his suite to complain about him keeping her awake by constantly dancing in the hotel room above hers (an effect that’s neatly realised). Of course mistaken identities ensue and everyone heads to Venice immediately after his show opens. Wasn’t the world of showbiz grand in 1935? We do hope Mr Chambers has his Ryanair ticket booked.

There are a few laugh-out-loud lines and even Ginger Rogers’ famous quote about dancing with Fred Astaire shoe-horned in, but largely the book suggests they had a few Christmas crackers to hand. Now, heaven knows, the Whingers go hand-in-hand with bad gags, but here the corn is as high as a theatre’s fly.

Elegantly mounted with art deco sets (Hildegard Bechtler) and lavishly costumed (Andrew was especially taken by a Fortuny frock worn by a member of the ensemble in the finale, though sadly doesn’t have the hips to pull it off), this doesn’t have the look of a show that’s been trolling round the country for months on tour.

The Whingers are easy to bring on side with crisply executed tap dancing (choreography Bill Deamer), though this all but dries up after the interval. Phil was constantly looking at their shoes to see if they had those shiny metal bits attached. Perhaps they should have irresponsibly left the tap running for the whole show.

Chambers charms as Travers and his apparent dedication to getting the moves right has payed off, none more so than his self-choreographed fannying around with a hat stand.

The famille Strallen must be feeling very proud at the moment. You wait for years for one iconic movie musical to be turned into a stage show featuring a song about – rather topically - getting caught in the rain starring one of your girls and you get two opening within a matter of months (sister Scarlett is sploshing at the Palace).

The supporting cast all do well with the material on hand: Martin Ball makes a likeable Horace Hardwick, Vivien Parry as his wife Madge wrestles the biggest laughs out of the better gags, Portuguese actor Ricardo Afonso makes the clichéd funny foreigner role (Italian) more than bearable although it did put Andrew in mind of Adolpho in The Drowsy Chaperone (“the man of a 1000 accents, all of them offensive”). Stephen Boswell uses his Charles Hawtrey-ish face to good effect.

The lowest point of the show was undoubtedly the role of the gratuitous gay dresser whose queerness was clearly thought to be so amusing in its own right that the addition of any genuinely funny lines would have been redundant. It probably played well in the provinces and – to be fair – it played unnervingly well at the Aldwych.

With a bit of serious graft on the book (adapted from the film by Howard Jacques and the show’s director Matthew White) this really might have flown. Yet, unlike some of the audience, the Whingers felt unmoved to ovate; a relief for Phil who was still terrified of upsetting the old bag behind him.

But, with birthdays still on the Whingers’ minds, Top Hat feels like unwrapping a beautifully wrapped present and finding a pair of socks inside (ill-fitting, polyester ones at that); acceptable, but disappointing.

The Whingers’ Top Hat tickets were generously provided by cheaptheatretickets.com.

Rating

Philly-no-mates had nothing booked in the diary. What to do? Take up an impromptu offer (presumably no one else being available) to revisit the Menier Chocolate Factory‘s Educating Rita now starring Claire Sweeney as the titular heroine or stay in on his tod and flick restlessly between TV ‘talent’ shows.

Sweeney or tod?

Phil dithered. He doesn’t normally like visiting the theatre on a Saturday evening* and whilst the decision was not exactly on a par with Sophie’s Choice he weighed up the options fastidiously. The Whingers had enjoyed it enormously two years ago; surely only disappointment would ensue.

Happily this proved not to be the case. Willy Russell‘s fable (director Tamara Harvey) of a Liverpool hairdresser’s desire to better herself through education proved as endearing and funny as remembered. Perhaps remembered may not be the correct word. The memory of a goldfish can be somewhat advantageous; the script came across as if he was hearing it all for the first time.

This was not inconsiderably helped by the charm and seemingly natural chemistry between Matthew Kelly as Frank, Rita’s Open University tutor and Sweeney (the daughter of a butcher apparently! We must anticipate her Mrs Lovett). And it is not meant as an insult to say how impressed he was by Sweeney’s convincing Scouse accent, which, being unfamiliar with the legend of Brookside (she was Lindsey Corkhill in the soap), he had no idea is how she normally talks. Rita wasn’t the only one getting an education.

But what stuck Phil was how well-structured, witty and warmly entertaining the piece remains. Rita’s logical responses to learning are frequently hilarious.

The only real whinge is the decision to insert an interval (it was 1hr 40 minutes previously). Oh and that the book-laden set of Frank’s office isn’t raised above basic floor level so you can only see the players from the shoulders up when they’re seated, presumably as it has to accommodate larger theatres when it tours after its brief run at the Menier. Oh and…

Footnote

* What is it with Saturday night audiences? Things were being knocked over and dropped throughout the show and it sounded as if some had smuggled bottles into the auditorium (had Andrew sneaked in?). At least Phil and his fellow-theatregoer had brought in their wine in plastic cups. Ok, admittedly these were copious amounts of plonk but Phil’s excuse is that he was still working on the no interval theory.

And a special mention must go to the couple seated next to us. They only squished along in their seats reluctantly when tickets with seat numbers were produced, fanned themselves throughout the play causing the bench seating to rock, clunked the ice in their drinks noisily and then (we assume – forensics are on the case) stole Phil’s companion’s programme at the interval. Grrr. It’s Britain’s Got Talent from now on.

Rating

One Man’s Two Guvnors may be another man’s poison but we urge you to take the risk and nip down to The Harold Comedy Theatre and take in the really rather pleasing and old-fashioned (in a good way) double-bill you will find there.

With all its transfers into town the Chichester Festival Theatre must find it more difficult than a Boris Bike to find somewhere to park in the West End but we should all be grateful that this already acclaimed production has metaphorically managed to chain its crossbar to the railings in Panton Street.

Apparently David Hare was approached by Terrence Rattigan‘s estate to write a new curtain-raiser for The Browning Version  to substitute for Rattigan’s own Harlequinade (which incidentally Phil once actually saw and found lacking).

So it is to his credit that – given the brief of “something better than Harlequinade” Sir David Hare-of-Hentitlement came up with South Downs, a neatly complementary piece (director Jeremy Herrin) that echoes the themes of isolation and apparent acts of kindness in a public school. The main difference is that whereas Rattigan’s play is a story of the masters, Hare’s takes the students’ point of view.

And how engaging and funny it proves. We’re not sure why that surprised us, but it did. Anyway, it centres around a somewhat precocious, inquisitive and bright pupil John (a remarkable stage debut from Alex Lawther) who is in trouble for a letter of protest he’s written to the Daily Express. He also unhappily frets about his lack of charm and is abandoned by his only school chum (Bradley Hall) before unexpectedly finding a friendly spirit in the form of actress Belinda Duffield (Anna Chancellor) the mother of one of his colleagues.

When Belinda’s not serving fruit cake (that’s not a euphemism) to John (who doesn’t really care for cake “on any level”) she is appearing at the Duke of York’s in Uncle Says No, a title which immediately appealed to the Whingers and we can’t wait for David Hare to do a Michael Frayn and write it. We’d be there like a shot, on any level.

The Browning Version (director Angus Jackson) turned out to be even better once the Whingers realised that it wasn’t the other Rattigan and stopped waiting for a Postal Order to make an appearance (why don’t playwrights write plays about Postal Orders any more?). Steeped heavily in the same air of disenchantment that pervades the first play, a repressed classics master Andrew Crocker-Harris (Nicholas Farrell) is forced to leave his school due to ill-health but has further unbearable humiliations heaped on him one after the other. It would be unfair to reveal more as the plot’s twists are quite shocking in their way.

Chancellor, Bradley Hall (not the name of an imposing public school but another rather gifted young actor) and Mark Umbers deserve special mentions in despatches, though there isn’t a weak link in the whole cast. Without clutching for superlatives, let us just say that if Farrell’s performance isn’t recognised at next year’s Olivier Awards then there is something very wrong with the Oliviers’ judging process. Which of course there is according to David Benedict’s recent article in Variety.

Rating

Mr Andrew has booked this and although Mr Phil is never really sure what he’s going to see he felt like Mr Grumpy, Mr Silly and Mr Dyslexic rolled into one amorphous Day-glo shape when he realised that Mr Enda Walsh‘s play was a gritty monologue and nothing at all to do with Roger Hargreaves’ popular doodles.

Now the Whingers have given Aunt Enda a fairly wide berth since The Walworth Fiasco Farce almost four years ago but the lure of the very talented Mr Cillian Murphy was sufficiently strong to persuade the Whingers to rather graciously give the Irish playwright another go and really we do wonder if we weren’t paying attention last time because his 1999 play Misterman  is practially a compendium of WEW theatrical must-haves:

It is all performed in a breathless, interval-free 90 minutes, there is food consumed on stage (cheesecake), working plumbing (a stand pipe), rain, Jammy Dodgers, copious amounts of expectorate, a large tub of Swarfega (a first for us but Aunt Enda is clearly way ahead of us in some respects), a town drunk and Doris Day singing “Everybody Loves A Lover“.

But we’re running away with ourselves. Mr Murphy is one Thomas Magill living – or perhaps trapped – in a highly dilapidated, disused factory space or depot (design Jamie Vartan). He’s a self-proclaimed evangelist-cum-Messiah determined to rid his town of Inishfree of sin.

Surrounded by decrepit reel-to-reel tape players he plays tape recordings (Mr Niall Buggy and Miss Eileen Walsh among others) of characters from his life, chatting to them or acting out both sides of conversations with his mother, various locals and people he’s encountered whilst conducting a cacophony of his own edited sound effects. There’s more than a touch of Mr Beckett with the emphasis happily on Krapp rather than crap.

The National’s website boasts a “tour-de-force solo performance” (it has already been seen in Galway and New York) and for once we would not dare to disagree. The phrase might have been coined for him: Mr Murphy steers a dangerously manic path between highly amusing amiability and chilling horror. One might even call him Rylance-ian. There is also a great deal of running about the vast Lyttelton stage in three dimensions.

Maybe everything is happening in his cluttered mind, all part of his madness as the mundane jostles with the biblical in his head. Anyhoo, life seems to have left Thomas an unbroken Jammie Dodger short of a picnic yet, despite some of his actions he never stops being mesmerising and strangely endearing.

Aunt Enda toys with language in a most entertaining fashion throughout and also masochistically directs requiring all manner of things from Mr Murphy which, if he didn’t keep sloshing liquids around and fiddling with the electrics, we would say he delivers most electrifyingly. An audience member, clearly caught up in the magic that is theatre inhaled in shock at his disregard to health and safety. You would be unwise to try this at home.

Without giving too much away we were distracted to wonder if anyone gets to eat the broken Jammie Dodgers post-show each night. We say give them to the person doing extraordinary work with the sound cues. Phil remembers his local grocery shop selling broken biscuits from a barrel and they were always considered a treat in those days.

And the sound design by Gregory Clarke is nothing short of brilliant and not in the Olivier-winning sense of Matilda (FFS why? We couldnt’ hear the words).

What was it all about? We have really only the muddiest of notions, but that didn’t stop us enjoying the craic and in some ways Aunt Enda was saving the most audacious until last: for quite astonishingly the finale involved a cascade of balloons (one of Phil’s premier league theatrical bete noirs) which didn’t send Phil off the deep end at all because these balloons were actually balloons, not lame metaphors for something else (as far as we could tell).

Both Mister Whingers emerged rather impressed, ever so slightly exhausted and somewhat in awe of Mister Murphy’s ability to work the Lyttelton barn .

Rating

And now in this Jubilee year comes another royal-themed offering The King’s Speech which in its film incarnation went on to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards though Phil maintains that the even more enjoyable and superior The Social Network was robbed.

And later in the year the Olympics-themed Chariots of Fire (another Best Film Oscar-winner) will grace the Hampstead Theatre. This is unlikely to be the last Olympic themes adaptation and the Whingers are holding their breaths in the hope that a musical adaptation of Marathon Man might be on the cards. Well, Little Shop of Horrors managed a number about dentistry, so why not?

Anyway, this The King’s Speech is the David Seidler ”play that started it all”. Seidler went on to win the Best Original Screenplay at the Academy Awards just as Colin Firth famously nabbed the Best Actor door-stop. No pressure for Charles Edwards then, who takes on the role of the stammering prince Bertie forced into the position of becoming a King (George VI) when his brother opts for the lap of Mrs Simpson rather than a seat on the throne.

But the fact that he’s not Colin Firth is to Edwards’ advantage. Not only is he very good in the part but being a less familiar face it’s easier to accept his performance.

The play’s best moments are without doubt the central interchanges and the relationship-building speech therapy sessions he has with Jonathan Hyde‘s (also excellent) Lionel Logue. Most of the other brief scenes are ripped through at such a place they sometimes seem little more than Tussauds’ tableaux, especially in the early stages of the play.

The elegant set (Anthony Ward) twirls like a Dervish presenting – among others – Stanley Baldwin (David Killick), reliable Winston Churchill impersonator Ian McNeice and Joss Ackland, still commanding the boards as King George V even though he passes on halfway through Act 1, thus passing on his title.

At one point Edward (Daniel Betts) and Mrs Simpson (Lisa Baird) dance behind the set’s main picture-framed scrim which revolves at such a pace Bertie and the Queen Mum-to-be (Emma Fielding) are forced to walk the turntable at a rather un-regal pace to complete a circuit of the stage. We declare it a photo-finish.

And though the central characters’ wives get a decent crack at building their characters (Charlotte Randle is a charming Myrtle Logue, a part considerably more developed than in the film) the other supporting actors are left with little to work with.

Understandably, with that in mind, it didn’t stop Michael Feast. His Archbishop of Canterbury is a presentiment of Occupy London outside St Paul’s Cathedral as he sets up his own extravagant camp row of tents at Westminster Abbey. Talk about giving mincing a bad name. We were not amused.

But we were compensated by an appearance of the Stone of Scone. It’s always a treat to see the Stone of Scone (the Whingers like theirs with jam and clotted cream) make an appearance on stage, however briefly.

TKS looks like it could occupy the Wyndham’s Theatre for some time but the Whingers are campaigning for it to be transferred to one of the many more suitably titled theatres: the Duke of York’s, The Duchess, The Prince of Wales, The Prince Edward or even The Queen’s or Her Majesty’s.

Coming in at just over two hours (including interval) Adrian Noble has directed to make the play just as amusing and engaging as the celluloid incarnation, though Phil wondered why the most memorable line from King George VI after his final make-or-break speech was omitted from the play. In the film when Logue mentions “a stammer on the W” the King replied, “Well I had to throw in a few so they knew it was me.”

But Edwards delivers his speech so convincingly and movingly at the end and with overcoming adversity always being such a crowd-pleaser it drew applause from the audience; at the curtain call many ovated.

Phil was taken back to his days at the Theatre Royal Brighton when Hazel Dorling would tickle The National Anthem out of her ivories at the end of each performance. It’s no reflection on The King’s Speech to wonder whether they were on their feet for the performance or the King.

Or perhaps their united state might offer a clue to where these people came from.

Rating

We’d call it a deliciously canny and waggish merchandising ploy.

The Whingers love to fill a few minutes taking in the finest in the shops at theatres. Themed products always amuse us. Singin’ in the Rain is offering a range of branded umbrellas, Phantom of the Opera markets a magic mug which when filled with a hot drink sees the Phantom’s white mask magically appear and most musicals have the usual CDs, T-shirts and key rings you’d expect, though at least in Sweeney Todd a key is crucial to the plot.

Occasionally this is taken just that little bit further. The Menier’s Abigail’s Party is serving pre-show 70s meals including chicken Kiev and fondue (as different courses we presume). And of course the Whingers were seduced into parting with their cash last year when at Frankenstein a smoking green cocktail called The Experiment went on sale in the National’s bar.

But the Sweeney Todd people have probably come up with the best one yet. In keeping with show’s grisly cannabalistic plot the bars at the Adelphi theatre are selling “Mrs Lovett’s Bleedin’ Hot Pies”. And they do indeed bleed. Quite literally.

Cut into the succulent gravy through the pie’s velvety and wavy crust and ‘blood’ seeps out. Well, with health and safety restrictions being what they are it’s understandably not real blood but ketchup. They’re messy but not oily and sadly they’re not served with a doily so your hands might get smeary dearies. Unsurprisingly the Whingers had to try them.

Fortunately there’s no other theming of the ingredients, so don’t expect to find sawdust, fingernails, pussycats or Royal Marines in them; 100% natural ingredients according to the wrappers. There’s a meat one and an off-topic vegetarian version available which, as Andrew won’t go near anything that’s even touched meat, meant we had to try them both. And how delicate, luscious and ambrosial they are too, not bad taste after all. But we do wonder what Mr Sondheim makes of it all.

Perhaps the Theatre Royal Haymarket, where One Man, Two Guvnors is now playing could serve hummus in a cricketer’s box or if Naked Boys Singing rears its head again we might see sausages sandwiched between buns on display.

Seems a downright shame, seems an awful waste if these pies are confined to the Adelphi. Perhaps they’ll catch on in the world out there and we’ll see Imelda Staunton as Mrs Lovett spearheading the advertising campaign.

Mrs Lovett’s Bleeding Hot Pies are at the Adelphi Theatre for a price of £5 each and if the show doesn’t run beyond its current booking period (until Sept 22nd) will narrowly and fortuitously escape October’s new “Hot Pie Tax” on products “above ambient air temperature when provided to the customer”.

Maybe it was something in the best pies in London or the ambient air that scrambled our thoughts more than ever to notice that Adelphi Theatre is an anagram of Helipad Theatre, so we believe this playhouse would be just the place to see more choppers on display with a revival of Miss Saigon. But then it also rearranges into The date? April, eh! If you get it…

Ask for them at the bar if you want to make an arse of yourself and eat it too.

Who ate all the bleedin' pies?

Last Sunday saw them go from the sublime to the ridiculous with two nautically themed diversions: the brilliant and hilarious Aardman 3D movie The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists and episode one of Julian Fellowes’ Titanic which posits a radical new angle on the disaster by proving that the ship sank not because of an iceberg but due to to the excess number of servants on board.

Anyway, anxious to maintain our levity levels we trekked to Wimbledon for the first night of Howlin’ Comedy Club which will play at the New Wimbledon’s studio on the last Monday of each month.

The club’s first night featured an amiable Miles Crawford (host), Phil Butler (who eventually climaxed with some funny business with genuine children’s toys, turning them into rather adult toys in the process) and a cat-obsessed John Maloney. But it was after the interval that the Whingers’ raison de nous trouvons en banlieue took the stage: we have been banging on about Kev Orkian to anyone who cares to listen since we first saw him at the Edinburgh Fringe and he subsequently held his own against Dame Edna in Wimbledon’s recent panto Dick Whittington. Mr Orkian duly delivered a cracking set which got the Whingers’ feeling of well-being up to Prozac-Plus.

We can’t really rate it as each night will be different, but excitingly, next month’s club line-up includes none other than the Panto king himself Mr Eric Potts. Perhaps by then they will have gotten around to putting the apostrophe in the logo.

“It’s 3 hours long. Act 1 is 1 hour 37 minutes”.

The corners of Andrew’s mouth turned due south as his eyebrows shot off in entirely the opposite direction; you’d think he’d just heard that Carol Channing had announced her retirement.

The problem with Rodgers and Hammerstein is they just didn’t know when to stop. Many musicals are lucky to produce any, let alone one or two memorable numbers. They should heed South Pacific and weep: it has over a dozen of them plus the reprises.

The opening scene dispenses three well-known songs, scene 2 polishes off three more, but as R&H have the luxury of a seemingly bottomless well of catchy melodies they can afford to.

Between these songs it has to squeeze in stories gleaned by Joshua Logan and Hammerstein from James A. Michener’s Pulitzer Prize – winning book Tales of the South Pacific set during World War II: US nurse Nellie (Samantha Womack) is a full-time cockeyed optimist and part-time racist who falls in love with a rich plantation owner (though she’s not overly bothered that “he’s a cultured French man”). But it turns out that Anton Emile De Becque (Matthew Cammelle) comes with two mixed-race children from his marriage to a now dead Polynesian woman. On top of this there are subplots galore about the antics of soldiers stationed in the South Pacific, another love affair scuppered by carefully taught racism, a derring-do military mission and a dodgy local woman who peddles grass skirts and shrunken heads.

Had it been possible to shrink Andrew’s head and freeze his expression on hearing the running time Phil would have done so and offered it to Bloody Mary (Loretta Ables Sayre) for “hundred dollar” (ONO). But unexpectedly, by the time those first 97 minutes had passed Andrew was positively beaming.

Actually, the signs were good from the outset when the deliciously large orchestra struck up the overture and reminded the Whingers of the ridiculously sumptuous slew of standards to come. Had the audience actually shut up rather than talking animatedly over it it would have sounded even better.

Expectations were dashed somewhat when the front cloth rose to reveal De Becque’s rather shabily realised plantation home. SP is a touring production which came here from an acclaimed run at the Lincoln Center via the Barbican (director Bartlett Sher won the Tony Award for it) but we must presume it didn’t look quite this low rent on The Broadway.

But it didn’t really matter. The songs and the music and the performances turned out to be more than enchanting. The extravagance here is in the orchestra and the casting rather than on the sets or disappointingly paltry amounts of shampoo Nellie applies as she washes that man right outa her hair.

Womack, Cammelle and Daniel Koek (as Lt Cable) deliver the goods in both performances and vocals and Ables Sayre is terrific, both sinister and funny as Bloody Mary (and now the only one left from the New York cast having played it there for two and a half years).

The plot with its liberal themes (which must have been way ahead of its day for a musical in 1949) proves engaging and we always feel indulged when heads are topped off by wig virtuoso Richard Mawbey’s efforts. No wonder Nellie was so careful with her hair-washing.

So not a long haul after all. The Whingers emerged feeling that their three hours had been well spent and hummed “Dites-Moi” all the way home. Even we asked ourselves “pourquoi?” on that one.

Rating

“Because Samantha Spiro is in it and I saw it years ago and really enjoyed it” Phil repeated with increasing impatience.

Of course Phil’s ‘years ago’ wasn’t Judi Dench’s Filumena, which was a mere 14 years ago, but the Franco Zeffirelli production from so long ago that Patricia Hayes was playing the maid and Joan Plowright’s youthful sons included Trevor Eve and Larry Lamb.

Those were the days when Phil would sit in the gallery of the Theatre Royal Brighton and see everything and – more peculiarly – enjoy almost everything. How times have changed.

Neopolitan ex-prostitute Filumena (Spiro) has been the mistress of wealthy philanderer Domenico (Clive Wood) for 26 years. As the play opens he’s just married her, believing her to be dying but it turns out it’s all been a ruse to tie him down and he’s not best pleased.

Initially it’s extremely difficult to care much for either of them: they both seem pretty ghastly. But at least they’re not spoiling another couple. Eventually we come to understand the reasons for her deceit; it’s a tart with a maternal heart tale and unless we put ‘spoiler alerts’ in we should leave it there but let’s just say if it were turned into a musical it would be performed to the back catalogue of Abba.

Eduardo De Filippo‘s (who also acted and starred in De Sica’s L’oro di Napoli with Sophia Loren in 1954) play came out in 1946. He could have neatly nabbed the title All My Sons (Tutti Miei Figli if you believe online translation) and caused a headache for Arthur Miller who didn’t lay claim to it until the following year.

Tanya Ronder’s new version (director Michael Attenborough) of the play has some very spirited playing from Spiro and Wood and a cast that includes Benidorm‘s Sheila Reid as Filumena’s long-standing companion and maid Rosalia. Yet despite a sumptuously pretty, flower-strewn courtyard set (Robert Jones) it doesn’t really amount to much.

It feels as if it’s being cooked on an electric ring and taking far too long to come to the boil. At best the comedy is only mildly amusing and the drama isn’t especially dramatic. It’s diverting enough, but when you find time to muse on the practicalities of drinking red wine in a cream linen suit and the impracticalities of metal garden furniture on stage (it’s rather noisy) there’s something amiss.

With an Act 2 of only 30 minutes it’s worth returning for the best scene (which provided the Whingers’ only laugh out loud moments) when Domenico tries to solve the secret that Filumena has been withholding from him for so long.

So we were left clutching at small mercies: an impressive selection of 40′s ties, a little bit of stage mopping – sadly, not on the scale of Singin’ in the Rain – and a rather impressive working drain which perked the Whingers up briefly. And Andrew always enjoys looking at on-stage trees and this one cascades over the Almeida stage replete with oranges.

But it was the celebratory wine that bothered the Whingers most – one bottle divided between eight glasses! Call that a celebration? The Whingers’ whistles would barely have been moistened.

Our ‘Glass half full’ rating has never seemed so appropriate.

Footnote

The funniest line is to be found in the programme in which Michael Attenborough – who visited Naples researching the play – reveals:

As I killed time in the departure lounge at Naples airport I wandered over to the gift shop and found to my delight a large poster full of pencil drawings of Eduardo (as the Neopolitans call him) and two fridge magnets bearing his unmistakable features. I sadly thought to myself how bewildered a shop assistant at Heathrow would be, were a visitor to ask for a fridge magnet of Harold Pinter.

An extensive internet search revealed only this (right) but it has provided raffle prize ideas for the next Whingers’ party.

Rating

And pretty much everything is in place just as it should be although sadly there was no sign of Andrew Lloyd Webber in the little boy’s room on this occasion.

And the sightline problems have been largely resolved. How lovely to have it behind a proscenium arch; we rest our case vis a vis thrust staging.

By “largely resolved” we mean unless you sit at the back of the Dress Circle or the Stalls: the set (Anthony Ward) is very high and the overhang will only allow you a view of the performers’ feet when the cast climb to the more vertiginous heights of the set.

The production is very dark in both senses (extremely gloomy atmospheric lighting by Mark Henderson). Mr Todd returns from down under where he was sent on a trumped-up charge seeking revenge on the Judge who sentenced him. He falls into serial-killing almost by chance after he runs into Mrs Lovett who just happens to have kept his barbering tools safe for him after all those years.

Her pie shop business is struggling but as the ingredients are expensive – and with a body-count higher than Hamlet – has the inspired idea not to waste the meat that Todd is providing. Don’t they realise that red meat is unhealthy? But at least it’s not processed (processing here involves putting it through the mincer three times), then again perhaps human flesh is white meat? We need a government edict to confirm.

Michael Ball’s career-changing turn as the titular slasher is a smasher and is as broodingly magnificent and well-sung as we remembered but Imelda Staunton’s nervously needy slipper-wearing Lovett now seems more desperate and even funnier than before.

SPOILER ALERT Todd’s first victim Pirelli is well played by Robert Burt, but if you come to the show in July comedian Jason Manford will be stepping into the role. Perhaps this will be the first of other ‘stars’ taking on the part. Which might suggest a party game of deciding which other celebrities you’d like to see having their throats cut 8 times a week. We could have great fun with that.

Jonathan Kent’s updating to the 1930s jars less on a second viewing but Act 1 does seem a tad long at 90 minutes and it takes a while before the USP kicks in when he turns Mr’s Lovett’s premises into an abattoir. Dare we suggest a little more slashing wouldn’t go amiss? But Act 2 rips along once Todd has got into his swing and the delicious collage of throat-cutting subversively sung to a reprise of “Johanna” is as thrilling as ever.

The Whingers’ Sweeney Todd tickets were generously donated by Cheap Theatre Tickets

Rating

An alarming prospect isn’t it? Not entirely beyond the realm of possibility; that well-known political commentator and sometime pop star Will Young made another appearance on the show last week. Not that we’re suggesting either of them would ever ‘drop acid’ or whatever the it is the young people tune in with these days.

But it might give you a flavour of what to expect should you see Can We Talk About This? (currently taking up a brief residency at the National Theatre) which sees dancers speaking the verbatim dialogue of others whilst hopping about and stretching their bodies into peculiar shapes.

DV8‘s Lloyd Newson has collated a collage of interviews, discussions and voices on multiculturalism, censorship, extremism and Islam. There’s a lot of bouncing about, jerky head movements and contorted bodies whilst delivering the words. Think London Road with dance (and presumably a chiropractor on standby backstage) but sadly not a hint of ummm, hanging baskets.

Over 80 minutes it covers opinions and subjects from Shirley Williams to Salman Rushdie, from the Danish Muhammed cartoons to the murder of Dutch film-maker Theo Van Gogh and many others with funny names we’d forgotten or never heard of.

Phil was astonished at the multicultural cast’s abilities to speak the words mostly audibly whilst hanging from a beam, standing on their hands, drawing on their own bodies with a black marker or doing up their flies upside down. Andrew was unimpressed (“How hard can it be?” is Andrew’s life motto).

With no real understanding of the language of contemporary dance Phil found the choreography highly inventive and crisply executed (some West End choruses should take note) but even he had to concede to Andrew that it doesn’t really add much to what Andrew felt was “a lecture”. In fact sometimes it’s downright distracting as if watching a lecturer attacking Western liberalism whilst suffering from an extreme case of St. Vitus Dance.

A dancer breaks the fourth wall (and the second wall slowly and literally encroaches on the fourth – though it took us a long time to realise this) posing a question at to the audience at the outset: “Do you feel morally superior to the Taliban?” Perhaps most in the audience assumed the question to be rhetorical as only about 20% percent raised their hands. Maybe they just didn’t want to talk about it. Perhaps the question should have been posed again at the end of the piece to see if we were feeling differently after the onslaught of horrors described. Although by then we might have been too afraid to raise anything.

Whilst somewhat bitty, overstaying its welcome slightly and never really building to a satisfying dramatic climax Phil still found it incredibly original, the examples pointing up the inconsistencies of freedom of speech thought-provoking and was generally mesmerised, none more so than a scene where a woman intones the words of MP Ann Cryer about forced marriages whilst balancing a cup and saucer and being moved around by another dancer’s body parts. The Whingers concurred on that one.

Cirque du Soleil has raised its tent at Speaker’s Corner.

Rating

Minority Report

Andrew writes: A courageous, stimulating and interesting topic but (1) WTF was all that jiggling about for? At least it stopped the piece being  a David Hare play and one must be grateful for small mercies. And (2) if the thesis of the show had been something with which the National Theatre audience disagreed (“suffrage should be withdrawn from women and non-landowners”) then the general critical response to this show would probably have been one star rather than four. I found it interesting in spite of the hopping but that may not have been the response for which DV8 was aiming.

So 50% of the Whingers like olives then.

Which of course will mean squiddly dit if you’ve never seen Abigail’s Party. Extraordinarily one of the Whingers’ party at this preview at the Menier Chocolate Factory had never seen it before. Well, we say party, there were five of us and not strictly speaking there together, but by chance. But five people and a party? Friends of Abigail will understand where we’re going with this…

Tricky one. The 1977 TV recording of Mike Leigh‘s comedy of social manners is so well-remembered by many of us that anyone putting on a new production must also feel they’re putting on a straight-jacket and taking a leap into the known. In Whinger circles it is probably the most frequently quoted modern play (well, any play then; we are not know for intentionally lapsing into swathes of Shakespeare). It is so ingrained in the Whingers’ psyches that Andrew still insists on offering Phil olives just so he can lapse into Bevspeak.

Tamper with it and you’ll incur the wrath of its fans, remain too faithful and it might pale by comparison.

But the moment you enter the auditorium you can exhale and relax. It hasn’t been updated to a cyber-world and there is nothing site-specific on the way in. Mike Britton’s excellent set is perfectly site-specific, but only the sense that it immediately locates us in the 1970′s.

Beverly and Laurence’s suburban living room is a study in brown and all in the worst possible taste: the brown leather furniture, the wallpaper so ghastly it’s actually rather wonderful and then there’s the fibre-optic lamp. Phil was instantly transported back to the decade when his next door neighbours had just such a lamp proudly positioned on top of their TV set. They even had a special comb for grooming the optics. Phil often popped round for a spot of grooming.

Beverly and Laurence have invited their neighbours round for a drinks party: the meek, inhibited Angela, her monosyllabic ex-professional footballer husband Tony and the divorced Susan whose unseen 15 year-old daughter Abigail is having a party at home. The dialogue is hilariously awkward and stilted as the guests struggle to find things to talk about.  Bev is anxious that everyone (but especially herself) enjoy themselves and struggles to keep things in the air by over-serving them.

The biggest problem for any new production of Abigail’s Party must be casting the aspirational hostess as the role was played so famously by Alison Steadman; it has to be brave or foolhardy actress who takes her on. If you know Steadman’s Beverly it will always be the character that takes the longest to adjust to but Jill Halfpenny tries on those shoes, finds them a decent fit yet is still able to leap that massive hurdle in her high heels successfully; she’s funny, agreeably ghastly and shimmering with retro-sexuality.

Comparison’s may be odious but we cannot help ourselves. The three female performers probably take their roles further from the originals than the men. None more so than Natalie Casey who whilst remaining true to the character creates a completely different version from Janine Duvitski’s Angela and rather wonderfully too.

But director Lindsay Posner has cast the whole show deftly and marshalled the excruciating cringe-worthy set up to provide plenty of amusement throughout. It’s good to hear (Abi) gales of laughter echoing around the Menier again. Susannah Harker plays the quiet Sue completely convincingly as if she’d understandably much rather be somewhere else, Andy Nyman is suitably frantic, neurotic and hen-pecked which balances nicely against Joe Absolom‘s Tony’s taciturn unease. But he doesn’t seem overly uncomfortable when Bev sets her sights on his thighs.

The party degenerates as drink kicks in, the competitiveness, prejudices and embarrassments get worse with Bev becoming even more selfish, Laurence more stressed, people getting ill and Sue seeming like a prisoner in her hosts’ home. If we say it’s car crash theatre we mean it as a compliment.

Phil’s only real quibble is that the impact of that crash might be even heightened if it ran straight through (which would be about 1hour 35 minutes) but apparently Mr Leigh insists it must be played with an interval.

Someone behind the Whingers couldn’t stop themselves reciting a couple of lines along with the performers. And if there is occasionally a feeling of playing a greatest hits album and waiting for one’s favourite tracks (the Demis Roussos, the olives, the lipstick application tips, the “Love to Love Baby” moments) it still becomes more than a sum of its parts. Happily AP is in such safe hands here it enforces the play’s status as a classic able to travel beyond that iconic original production.

The Menier is on top form again with a production showing potential to go beyond its own walls (it is presented with the Theatre Royal Bath and will run there in April). If Kinder Egg is a rating of 1 for the Chocolate Factory (Hershey’s a 2 etc) then this deserves Hotel Chocolat status.

How we laughed. A lot.

Rating

Picture this. The Whingers at the Young Vic, seated between two fat ladies (88), forcing them to squeeze their legs (11) tightly together before getting their eyes down for Bingo.

Partick Stewart stars; what else could it be but a full house?

Edward Bond‘s play (full title Bingo: Scenes of Death and Money) comes to us from the Chichester Festival Theatre which is currently enjoying as many transfers as a restless footballer. Though sadly, for us, the play turns out to have nothing to do with the game of chance so beloved of working class women of popular imagination and Victoria Wood sketches. Would that it had been.

Mr Stewart plays an ageing Shakespeare (although on the evidence of Act 1 it could be anyone) who has signed a contract to protect his rented land on condition that he won’t interfere with land enclosures which will shaft the local peasants.

And if the opening scene where a seemingly defeated Shakespeare is in a state (28) as he struggles with his conscience over this decision sounds dull to you, believe us it is. Listening to someone describe a delayed journey into work stuck on the Brighton line (59) would surely prove more electrifying.

To perk this tedium up and to add dramatic tension an old man clips a hedge affecting an accent and look which put Andrew in mind of Bayleaf the gardener from The Herbs before getting up to tricks (46) with a dirty Gertie (30) behind this neatly clipped bush. The peasants are getting shafted all over the place.

It’s all so dreary that the Whingers were grasping at straws to get them through to the interval. They admired the bark strewn on the YV’s stage pitying the stagehands who have to clean the floor (54) the use of a garden gate (8) on the steps (39) of one of the aisles, were astonished when Shakespeare revealed that his property didn’t have a thatch and perked considerably when Stewart called out “House!” thinking the play was going to spin on it’s head and suddenly live up to the title.*

The one saving grace (68) (SPOILER ALERT) was the body of the beggar woman who has been executed for arson and having droopy drawers (44) positioned on a gibbet high above the back of the stage in scene 3 (cup of tea). So convincing is the dummy, we assumed it was the actress exercising an extraordinary feat of breath control. It was impossible to concentrate on anything else and was a most welcome distraction from the humourless plodding of the play.

So what do we conclude from what we saw of Bingo? That Mr Bond is a bit PC (49) and is airing his strop that Shakespeare was a bit of a shit, more interested in number one (Kelly’s eye) and his old age pension (65) than the welfare of others despite being widely considered a keen chronicler of the human condition? Impossible to care.

And anyway, we have no way of knowing: the Whingers were asked to leave their front row seats at the interval (“for the set change”) and despite being halfway there (45) took no persuading to get up and run (31). The clickety click (66) of their heels could be heard on The Cut as they hoofed it back to their respective housey-houseys.

We were certainly not alone. It may have been a full house for Act 1, but we could only feel that for those who stayed  it would be unlucky for some (13).

Footnote

* Well, not entirely unrelated to the game apparently. If you’re wondering about the title (we were) Bond once explained the title in an interview, “Art has very practical consequences. Most ‘cultural appreciation’ ignores this and is no more relevant than a game of ‘Bingo’ and less honest.” Indeed.

Rating

60 years on the throne. Andrew is laying odds that the Queen will still be around to get that telegram off to Phil should he hang on a few more years. But what does the Jubilee really mean to the Whingers?

Royal cupcakes? Cliff, Elton and Shirley on a traffic island in the Mall? Huge anticipation that Princess Beatrice might turn up in a new hat? The Whingers’ preferred Jubilee line is that it’s an excuse (should we need one) for a few tinctures.

But before we unravel our bunting there is a coronation to celebrate. King Michael (Grandage) has abdicated after his ten-year reign – topically eschewing male primogeniture – leaving theatrically-minded eyes agog to see how comfortably the jewel-laden Donmar crown balances on the head on his successor Queen Josie (O’Rourke).

Prince Harry has taken his grandmother’s 5p and kicked off the Jubilee revels in the Falklands. Let us hope he wasn’t coerced like the soldiers bamboozled into taking the king’s shilling in Josie Rourke’s inaugural Donmar production The Recruiting Officer.

There was some debate before and after the show as to what is (and what isn’t) Restoration comedy. Some desultory research revealed George Farquhar‘s 1706 comedy sneaked in before the end of the period, which cleared things up for the Whingers, whose previous understanding of Restoration comedy assumed it referred to Joan Rivers’ latest facial surgery.

Sadly Restoration is all about overly complicated plotting, in this case men in love with women of position and fortune, people posing as each other, cross-dressing and in Shrewsbury no less. We got the idea, it’s Shakespeare but with some laughs. Very convoluted and confusing. We barely kept up.

But we have our excuses. Designers Lucy Osborne and James Farncombe (lighting) have opted for a set that gives no real sense of location and involves a lot of candles; hundreds of them (Phil’s abacus was overheating too) dripping from a large screen at the back of the stage and from massive ‘chandeliers’ above it, not to mention the flickering electric ones surrounding the circle. It appears no nook of the Donmar has been left uncandled.

Now this is all very pretty and appropriately festive and would have been all very well a few days ago when we were enjoying that rather chilly snap. In fact it would have made economic sense to save on fuel bills by turning down the thermostat and purchasing a £10 seat in the Donmar circle. But not now, with relatively clement weather; the Whingers had no idea cp could be this intense. It wasn’t only the candles that were melting in the circle; it was very hard to find our wits, let alone keep them about us..

Was this why we initially found things a a bit of a slog? Now the Whingers love silly shenanigans like the best of them, yet somehow things never hit the giddy heights of She Stoops to Conquer (which is not Restoration apparently).

Ms Rourke has left no stop unpulled. She has assembled a most starry cast all delivering satisfyingly robust performances: Mackenzie Crook as the recruiting officer Sergeant Kite, Tobias Menzies‘ dashing, womanising Captain Plume in love with Nancy Carroll‘s cross-dressing Silvia (putting Phil in mind of Juliet Mills in Carry On Jack – see right), Nicholas Burns‘ Mr Worthy who is in love with Rachael Sterling‘s camp and heavily panniered Melinda, plus Gawn Grainger dithering effectively as Justice Balance and Aimee-Ffion Edwards‘ impressive chicken-wrangling Rose/Mary.

Yes chickens! Live ones! Andrew perked up briefly and clucked appreciatively. Does Mr Crook have it in his contract that he won’t appear on stage without them? We haven’t seen a chicken on stage since Jerusalem (which also featured Miss Edwards). Nice to see they weren’t ‘resting’ for too long.

But even the poultry (and indeed the whole cast) were upstaged when Mark Gatiss finally teetered on in Act 1 as the magnificently foppish Captain Brazen giving the show a much needed flourish.

The best moments come in Act 2 when things had warmed up almost to the circle’s temperature and many involve Gatiss fopping wildly. A duelling scene when he affects an accent so absurdly amusing suggested that it’s a shame he didn’t keep it up for the whole evening. But the play’s funniest scene lands when Sgt Kite disguises himself as a fortune-teller - for romantic interference and recruitment purposes - especially when Brazen wafts in for a consultation.

The evening would have been much shorter without the extensive (though well delivered) musical interludes suggesting director Rourke is suffering from a touch of Hytneritis. The singing and instrument-playing quintet who interrupt the play finish it off with a rendition of “Over the Hills and Far Away” as they march off to fight. A strangely late attempt at poignancy after the over-the-top jolly romping which precedes it.

But that may be Farquhar*. Or maybe it was just us? The Whingers have no previous history with this play apart from Timberlake Wertenbaker‘s Our Country’s Good about a group of convicts putting on a production of TRO in an Australian penal colony. Discussing this of course led Andrew to reflect on his friend David Cottis’s greatest wish that Wertenbaker might one day marry Justin Timberlake, thus aquiring the moniker, well, you get the idea…

Footnote

*The trouble with the name Farquhar is that its mention instantly clears everything from the Whingers’ minds apart from this:

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