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
You have to hand it to The Bridge Theatre for jumping the gun. The publicity tells us that “Alan Bennett’s new play Allelujah! is as sharp as The History Boys and as funny as The Lady in the Van“. Err, we’ll get back to you on that.
Notice there’s no mention of Mr Bennett’s last two offerings, The Habit of Art and People. We can’t imagine why. Read the rest of this entry »
Featuring TV’s Danielle Hope as Dorothy and Bill Kenwright as the Harbinger of Doom.
We were astonished to read that co-producer Mister Bill Kenwright had been treading the Palladium boards as warm-up man for Andrew Lloyd Webber‘s new production of The Wizard of Oz. Frankly, it seemed unlikely.
But it is true.
It was true on Tuesday evening, anyway. There he was, reminiscing about Sunday Night at the London Palladium, talking up the quality of the orchestra, the beauty of the sets and the “zillions” (which must mean TWOO has now outstripped Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark as the most expensive musical of all time) spent on the double stage revolve.
Stopping just short of slapping a thigh he encouraged the crowd to sing along, clap, cheer, scream and boo the wicked witch before casually dropping in the fact that Michael Crawford wouldn’t actually be giving his wonderful Wizard or his Professor Marvel. Or his Emerald City doorman, come to that. It’s times like this make you wish for the simple white slip poking out of your programme.
The cause? Not mere laryngitis but “blood on his nodules”, apparently – a medical detail that perhaps unsurprisingly failed to whip the crowd much further into the desired state of frenzy but which did cause the Whingers to kick themselves for not packing the WEW Patent Rectal Thermometer.
An economically monickered understudy called “Zeph” (usually “Munchkin Mayor/Ensemble”) would be stepping into Mister Crawford’s beret. Read the rest of this entry »
A brilliant new strategic initiative was recently devised in Whingers Towers to deal with the post-Christmas theatrical lull: a period of “mopping up” the about-to-close shows that we have somehow missed.
But when we got down to it we just couldn’t really be bothered with Birdsong and despite constant entreaties from various quarters we continue to give Onassis a berth wider than any on the tycoon’s yacht.
Which really just left Flashdance The Musical. Read the rest of this entry »
A West End Whinger 