Review – The Exorcist, Phoenix Theatre

“This production contains material which may shock and offend” boasts The Exorcist. Here’s 10 reasons why you may be shocked or offended but perhaps not in the way that’s intended:

Review – London Road, National Theatre

You may well think this doesn’t sound very us. Just not, well, very ‘Whingers’ at all.

Picture it: a play built from recorded interviews with the residents of London Road in Ipswich where the five prostitutes who were murdered in 2006 plied their trade. It’s not about the murders but about how the locals were affected by the events, the ensuing media scrum that followed and the arrest and conviction of the murderer Steve Wright who lived in their road.

Those words are delivered by actors verbatim, seemingly with every stumble, every umm and every err preserved.

Then, just to be brave or thoroughly reckless, music is set to those words, turning it into a musical of sorts. It couldn’t possibly work could it?

The icing on the cake is that it’s staged in the National Theatre‘s Cottesloe. Yes the Cottesloe!

That will have the Whingers rushing to see it, won’t it?

On the other hand, it did open with a tea urn…

Would you think we’d lost our minds completely if we said we thought it was really rather superb?

Review – Serenading Louie, Donmar Warehouse

The Whingers’ heads have been turned more than a Linda Blair demonic possession in recent weeks. But having spent far more time hob-nobbing than actually watching plays, it was down to earth with a resounding thump last night after all their recent star-schtumphing.

The novelty of not being pestered by celebrities (well, almost*) almost made the prospect of sitting with ordinary members of the public at the  Donmar Warehouse seem attractive. And Lanford Wilson‘s Serenading Louie, about which the Whingers knew next to nothing, seemed an ideal way to re-enter their normal, everyday, humdrum lives.

Review – Red, Donmar Theatre

“Can you tell what it is yet?”

That iconic phrase always flashes through Phil’s mind when he stares at a painting by Mark Rothko. But never more so than last night as the Whingers watched Rothko and his studio assistant Ken attack a blank canvas with a pot of red paint. It’s a bit of a coup de théâtre, brilliantly choreographed as you would expect from director Michael Grandage – but the Whingers couldn’t help thinking of Rolf Harris.