Posts Tagged ‘Andrew Upton’
Friday 26 February 2016
Warning: May contain petals
If there had been a “switch off your phones” announcement before The Maids Phil might have avoided leaning across Andrew to poke the man next to him who twice turned his on to check what time it was. Pretty annoying. But actually what this show really needed was a stern warning, “DON’T STEAL THE PETALS”.
Phil was investigating one of the thousands of petals that surrounded the stage after the play finished until he was barked at by an over-zealous usher. Of course Phil had no intention of indulging in a little petal-pilfery, he just wanted to know what they were made of. If you’re intending to see this don’t risk chastisement. They’re paper. Never say we don’t do the dirty work for you. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in West End Whingers | 4 Comments »
Tags: Andrew Upton, Benedict Andrews, entertainment, Jamie Lloyd, Jean Genet, Laura Carmichael, London, play, review, Richard Mawbey, Soutra Gilmour, The Maids, theatre, Trafalgar Studios, Uzo Aduba, west end, Zawe Ashton
Friday 12 April 2013
Thrilling!
Now here’s a first and a SPOILER ALERT but as this was a first preview we cannnot guarantee it will happen again.* Pity.
Maxim Gorky’s Children of the Sun** may have begun with a whimper but it certainly ended with a bang: a stage explosion so intense it probably finished off a few senior members of the audience (obviously we survived to tell the tale). The heat could be felt several rows back in the stalls. The shock was so great, Phil let out an involuntary “Jesus!” and possibly a little wee. But even more excitingly – such was its impact – it set off the Lyttleton’s fire alarm.
Theatre doesn’t get much better than this.
This is what the audience left the theatre talking about. What more does one need to say? It’s tempting to stop here. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in West End Whingers | 8 Comments »
Tags: Andrew Upton, Bunny Christie, Children of the Sun, Emma Lowndes, entertainment, Geoffrey Streatfeild, Gerald Kyd, Gerald Kydd, Howard Davies, Justine Mitchell, London, Lucy Black, Maggie McCarthy, Maxim Gorky, National Theatre, Paul Higgins, play, review, theatre, west end
Friday 20 May 2011
“You’ll get in a right mess listening to words” says the all-knowing elderly butler Firs in Andrew Upton‘s version of The Cherry Orchard. And he’s quite right, Chekhov produced an awful lot of them and then adaptor Andrew Upton threw in a few of his own.
But unlike the critics who have gotten themselves into a real old tizzy about it the Whingers were in an unusually forgiving disposition.
It is true that “bozo” and a few other anachronisms occasionally jarred, as did “crap” and “bollocks”. But Andrew was quite happy when Upton pushed the anachronisms as far as taking a swipe at Phil’s favourite TV show with the line, “There’s nothing more repulsive than Loose Women.”
But it was when landowner Ranyevskaya drawled “Don’t waste your time watching plays – I bet it wasn’t funny at all,” that the Whingers realised that Upton was inviting them into bed with him. Let’s hope his wife Cate Blanchett rolls over and is happy to spoon. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in West End Whingers | 8 Comments »
Tags: Andrew Upton, Anton Chekhov, Bunny Christie, Conleth Hill, entertainment, Gerald Kyd, Howard Davies, James Laurenson, Kenneth Cranham, London, National Theatre, Neil Austin, Pip Carter, play, review, Sarah Woodward, The Cherry Orchard, theatre, Tim McMullan, west end, Zoë Wanamaker
Wednesday 17 March 2010
To be perfectly honest the Whingers really weren’t looking forward to Mikhail Bulgakov‘s The White Guard which doesn’t really support our claim to approach every theatrical sortie with an open mind. Actually, “blank” mind is probably closer to the truth.
So why did we book tickets for it then, you might ask? To which our response would be: “mind your beeswax” or, if we were in a better mood, “because if we only went to see things we knew we’d like we’d hardly go at all”.
We go to the theatre because we want to be surprised and the bigger the surprise the better. We want to enter a 3 hours plus (with two intervals) play with heavy hearts and come out raving about Jerusalem. And we want to drag our feet into the Lyttelton for yet another adaptation of an old Russian play and come out saying, “The National Theatre has come up trumps again! Hoorah for the National Theatre!”
Of course, these things don’t usually happen. Such occasions are rarer than hen’s teeth. But sometimes… Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in West End Whingers | 18 Comments »
Tags: Andrew Upton, Anthony Calf, Bunny Christie, Conleth Hill, entertainment, Howard Davies, London, Mikhail Bulgakov, National Theatre, Neil Austin, review, The White Guard, theatre, west end