Andrew is on sabbatical but Phil is soldiering on to help you decide between the Merlot and the Marlowe and generally putting London's West End theatre to rights
Sometimes the Whingers leave the theatre inspired.
Braving the rugby fans heading for Twickenham yesterday they trailed out to the Richmond Theatre through the Simon Callow and Bonnie Langford themed ticket barriers at the station to see the stage adaptation of Calendar Girls.
Yes, with New Year just around the corner they’re left themselves with a matter of weeks to bring out their own charity calendar. Read the rest of this entry »
Whatever next? Abu Ghraib the Musical!? Guantánamo the Musical!?
Any new musical is a tremendous risk but to stage one set in 1942 about the occupants of the Jewish Ghetto in Warsaw staging a show about Masada (where a siege by troops of the Roman Empire in AD 73 led to the mass suicide of Jewish rebels who preferred death to surrender) seems like, well, suicide.
Choose the same venue that housed the mega-flop Gone With the Wind – The Musical! and you might as well be go round backstage shouting “Macbeth” at every Tom, Dick and Manny.
Then there is the misfortune of staging it at a time when “the R word” is tightening belts.
And finally you have to take into account that this is, after all, Whingertown and the Whingers are curiously resistant to new musicals (all the good musicals having already been written in our humble opinion). Read the rest of this entry »
…well, not so well actually.
In fact the Whingers remember very little these days and are frequently at odds with each other about who was in what and whether they fled at the interval or not. No wonder Andrew is frequently entreating Phil to “Write it down!“.
But they can still remember the delightful Regent’s Park Open Air production of Gigi, but then they did see it only last Tuesday.
So to whet your appetite for the production, here’s the famous song “I Remember it Well” performed in what the Whingers consider its definitive version: Read the rest of this entry »
It’s not every day you get a chance to see the kazongas of the person who won the Theatregoers’ Award for the Most Popular Musical Actress in The Last 21 Years (or one of her kazongas, anyway).
But that was the surprising position the West End Whingers found themselves in at a preview of the new musical Marguerite ( – The Musical!). Read the rest of this entry »
With Andrew traipsing round former Yugoslavia (getting himself in the mood for another Eastern European Eurovision Song Contest victory), the Whingers are on a much needed break from bad theatre. This leaves Phil free to mull (inspired by the satisfying panning of Gone With the Wind) over the very worst shows he’s had the pleasure to experience.
It’s a long list, among the mouth-watering contenders: Jean Seberg, Leonardo the Musical: A Portrait of Love, Metropolis and Jeeves (the original 1975 version), but standing like a beacon of kitsch above the rest is that now legendary spectacle of Carrie – The Musical. (Dubiously ambiguous poster right) Read the rest of this entry »
The London Marathon arrived a few days early for the Whingers. Standing in freezing weather watching people run past dressed as rhinos would have been a doddle compared to this.
Thankfully the Whingers and their plus-eight (remember that – it is important later) had come prepared: thermos flasks of coffee, energy drinks, sports chocolate, pillows and hot water bottles were all smuggled into the auditorium. Beneath his smart evening-wear Andrew was sporting a natty and almost fresh set of his favourite jim-jams.
Most shockingly of all, Phil had broken his “no caffeine after 5pm” rule (one of the conditions of his ASBO) in a determined effort to make it through to the very end of the four-hour (but getting shorter) marathon that is a preview of Gone With The Wind – The Musical!
The big question on everyone’s lips, of course, was: “How can they possibly squeeze the thousand-odd pages of Margaret Mitchell’s epic novel into “just” four hours? The answer is simple… Read the rest of this entry »
The Whingers have oft complained that there’s not enough theatre out there that really amuses them.
Andrew’s sartorial choices often elicit huge guffaws from Phil, but he doesn’t need to sit through a couple of hours of dross to derive such pleasure. It’s often the high point of an otherwise turgid theatre evening.
So, a few years back, the Whingers (over a bottle or two of oh-be-joyful of course) threw down the gauntlet (Hello Kitty glove in Andrew’s case) to each other and decided that they could write something better. Read the rest of this entry »
Nice to get a missive today from erstwhile regular commenter J.A. imploring us to watch this YouTube video with the message: “Right…when is this transferring? Better than half of the tat that’s on at the moment. Surely the Haymarket will be empty soon?!”
Apparently this is Korean (South, we presume) school children singing at a concert in Duryu park in Daegu. Interesting Tap/Stamp fusion.
So, welcome to today’s earworm…
Andrew had a bit of a health scare this morning until he remembered that he had eaten beetroot at the Menier Chocolate Factory‘s restaurant last night.
It would have made a fitting theme for the review given that the first three previews of La Cage aux Folles were cancelled due to “cast illness” and consequently last night’s West End Whingers outing was unwittingly to see the first preview. Chest infections, apparently. There’s rather a lot of it about at the moment: Phil has been struggling with something rather nasty for several weeks and he isn’t just talking about Andrew’s new eau de toilette. Read the rest of this entry »
The Whingers don’t normally give shows a second chance.
But chance played a huge part in the Whingers’ last night on Broadway.
Scratching around for something to see amid the detritus caused by Local One, and mulling over several options which weren’t really capturing the Whingers’ (admittedly limited) imaginations, they decided to let fate make the decision for them. Read the rest of this entry »
Hoorah for Local One!
The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee was way down the Whingers’ list of shows to see while they were in New York but thanks to the stage hands strike, it crept up onto their list.
And they are dead chuffed that it did. Read the rest of this entry »
A West End Whinger 
