Review – Mr Footes’s Other Leg – Theatre Royal Haymarket

Groundhog Day for Phil and Andrew.

Back to reality after travelling in Indochina with the humdrum repetition of daily routines. So what could be more appropriate to add to our Groundhoggishness than revisiting a show that we’d already been thoroughly entertained by at Hampstead?

Review – Mr Foote’s Other Leg, Hampstead Theatre

We must declare an interest of sorts.

Ian Kelly, who wrote this play, Mr Foote’s Other Leg, once generously donated two of the drawings that he created live on stage in The Pitman Painters as a charity raffle prize for a The West End Whingers’ party. Remember those days? We do. But only just.

Based on Kelly’s own award-winning biography (which goes by the same name – and why wouldn’t it? It’s a nifty title) of Samuel Foote, 18th century actor, impressionist, comedian, satirist, warm up man, pamphleteer, female impersonator, playwright, theatre manager of The Haymarket and writer of the first true-crime bestseller. He also, rather carelessly lost a leg, but that wasn’t to lead to his downfall. Other events led to that.

Review – The Weir, Donmar Warehouse

Another week, another theatrical first.* Well, a first for us. Though sadly what led to this first is becoming a norm.

Barely two weeks after leaving Children of the Sun with a fire alarm – triggered by a stage effect – ringing in our ears, still more ringing dominates the punters’ leaving-the-theatre discussions.

The Donmar didn’t have a pre-show announcement to switch off mobiles (not that some people take any notice). And, of course, one went off. Someone had to take action. That someone was Brian Cox (the actor, not the particle physicist with the 90s rock band hair).