Review – Celebrity Autobiography, Leicester Square Theatre

This post is briefly to say that Phil has been called upon to verify Andrew’s gushing Edinburgh review of Celebrity Autobiography and has concurred with the findings of Andrew’s original report. These are words you are unlikely to hear again: Andrew was right. Urg.

The Whingers dropped in to the Leicester Square Theatre on Thursday evening when the line up (which varies from night to night) featured CA creators Eugene Pack and Dayle Reyfel plus Bridget Christie, Doon Mackichan, James Lance, Tiffany Stevenson, Smack The Pony‘s Doon Mackichan, Ugly Betty‘s Michael Urie and someone called David Tennant.

It’s almost unfair to single out Michael Urie as Phil’s favourite as there wasn’t a weak link. Every cast member milked each celebrity pontification to the point they’re even more hilariously unbelievable than they already were. The Whingers did worry a bit that celebrities might now be afraid to put pen (or someone else’s pen) to paper again.

Not that they read them; Phil hasn’t dipped into one since Pat Phoenix’s All My Burning Bridges in 1974 and Andrew has had no need for further celebrity literature since stumbling across his now much thumbed copy of Marlene Dietrich’s ABC in a second-hand bookshop (from memory: “There are three things a woman can create out of nothing: a hat, a salad and an argument”).

But as long as people keep churning them out Celebrity Autobiography has a future and that alone is a good enough reason for publishers to commission them.

Thursday’s show was principally  the same as the version Andrew saw in Edinburgh but with the addition of some thrillingly vapid pearls of wisdom from the writings of David Cassidy, Destiny’s Child and N’Sync.

Some lines – such as Diana Ross’s “I was in a wet dream” – will keep the Whinges chortling for days. Hysterical. Unmissable.

Celebrity Autobiography returns to the Leicester Square Theatre for three more dates 8 November 2010, 13 December 2010, 10 January 2011.

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