Review – Memphis, Shubert Theatre

Much like the West End, The Broadway is awash with juke box musicals and Memphis had been somewhat off the Whingers’ dial as they had mistakenly assumed it fell into that category. It just does sound like Dreamboats & Petticoats, Jersey Boys or American Idiot, doesn’t it?

Having already been chastised for not doing our homework (we tried explaining that Kevin Spacey’s dog Minnie ate it but to no avail) we really should know by now to have have checked and found out that – hallelujah! – Memphis is indeed a completely original show.

Well, perhaps “completely original” is stretching things a little. Since we knew next to nothing of this show we hadn’t read of the comparisons with Dreamgirls and Hairspray, but as the Browadway Bellyachers (as we then were) drifted into the street for their interval discussion, they found themselves almost in accord with the real critics.

Review – The Whisky Taster, Bush Theatre

James Graham’s play at the Bush about a former History Boy with synæsthesia is very much orange – an orange somewhere between Jacobs cream crackers and Flymo. Or perhaps slightly more like a satsuma left over from Christmas 1967 in the first week of February but with the distinct taste of a recently brushed brick. There is the unmistakable aroma of a recently unfolded pacamac.

Graham’s dialogue resembles the leaf of an Antirrhinum but with less of the smell of EPNS cutlery. Kate O’Flynn is like Nesquik. There’s an amusing turn from Simon Merrells (who is in The Wolfman – how periwinkle is that?) which just IS a bottle of Liebfraumilch rolling along a caravan table on the Gower peninsula at Whitsun.

At two and a half hours it begins to feel like the sound of a Bel Cream Maker when brushed up against the tag of a Ladybird t-shirt from Woollies (the Telford branch). But nowithstanding, it’s got that distinctive salty sound one associates with an episode of  Oh, Brother! starring Derek Nimmo.

To summarise: it’s exactly like the feel of a Dinnefords bottle through a Findus crispy pancake.

Rating

Review – Stovepipe, West 12 Shopping Centre, Shepherds Bush

Yes, you read that correctly, the Whingers went shopping last night.

Well sort of. Despite Andrew’s protestations that he just had to to pop into Argos, desperately needed an item from Doctors Surgery and that Old Boot Shoe Repairs really had Phil’s name on it, Phil dragged him past them all to one of the growing number of retail units that have had to look for new sources of income.

Yes, it’s a sure sign of how deep the recession is cutting at the West 12 shopping centre in Shepherds Bush that one of its former shops has been converted into a theatre foyer. Well theatre in the loosest sense. It’s not theatre as the Whingers know it.

Review – 2,000 Feet Away, Bush Theatre

Well, what kind of review can a production expect when it is advertised to start at 8pm, has unreserved seating requiring you start queueing at 7.45pm and finally admits you into the auditorium at 8.25pm without apology or explanation.

And  – even though it is only 90 minutes long – you get out at 10pm and have to find your way home from Shephards Bush.

It also features Ian Hart whose interview in The Times this week started thus:

Theatre fans, Ian Hart has something to tell you. “I hate theatre. I hate doing it. And it’s not the medium I wish to work in.” It gets worse. The 43-year-old firebrand actor, who is midway through rehearsals on Anthony Weigh’s controversial paedophile drama 2,000 Feet Away, hates you, too. “I hate the audience,” he says, over chicken Caesar salad in a South London café.

“I have a big problem with the audience. I don’t feel the desire to engage them. Which is what theatre is all about.”

So, it’s written by Anthony Weigh, directed by Josie Rourke and also stars Joseph Fiennes. Some people are quite good in it and the play’s OK in some ways. But it’s sold out anyway.

Half an hour of standing in this, then a play.

Review – Tinderbox, Bush Theatre

Why, oh why, oh why don’t people just ask us before they go around putting on plays willy nilly?

It would save an awful lot of strife, time, expense, trouble and suffering in the long run.