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
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 »
So, anyway, there we were having a quiet drink with Mel Brooks and Roger Bart when who should drop into the bar but Baz Bamigboye, the Daily Mail’s chief show-business reporter. Imagine the Whingers’ excitement. Read the rest of this entry »
Well, nothing could live up to what came before it, could it?
And we aren’t just talking about The Producers.
Young Frankenstein ain’t The Producers, but it ain’t Xanadu either.
Two nights ago the Whingers came out of Xanadu with mixed feelings – euphoric, but knowing in their hearts (sic) that their Broadway adventure had unexpectedly peaked too early.
They had mulled over what star rating they would have given Xanadu if they weren’t too lazy to have a star rating system. The Whingers love star ratings. They know where they are with a star rating; so much more useful than having things located in the wider discourse for you when it comes to deciding what to see.
So they and decided that on a six star Time Out rating, it would get a five.
On a standard five star rating such as The Guardian‘s (which actually has now been thrown into confusion having been exposed as a six level rating thanks to Gardner’s no-star rating for Menopause the Musical) they decided that to give Xanadu anything less than a five would be churlish.
The West End Whingers greatly enjoyed The Producers so when they heard that Mel Brooks was to follow up his tour de theatre with a musical version of Young Frankenstein they acted without hesitation and sent a reconnaissance team to New York City to check it out and report back on whether it was worth going or not.
Choosing the team was easy. Andrew had been so impressed with the critical faculties that Stanley (11), Delilah (16) and Mathilda (18) had exhibited at Gilgamesh that he shipped them off steerage class with their drowsy chaperones Allan and Helen.
A West End Whinger 