Review – The Twits, Royal Court Theatre

The Royal Court showed great goodwill to us all by not offering up The Twits as their Christmas show. Indeed – and rather bizarrely – this partially seasonal entertainment started previews the day after Easter Monday.

And, yada, yada yada, it was the first preview that Phil indeed attended and of course he is perhaps a little mature (in the elderly sense) for the audience it is aimed at. So, he will bear these matters in mind. But only a tad.

For this is Roald Dahl “mischievously adapted” by Enda Walsh and what a strange and untimely beast it is.

Review – Ballyturk, National Theatre

It was only yesterday that Phil was reminiscing about theatrical mishaps and already he has another to add to his list.

In Enda Walsh‘s strange and possibly existential (if Phil really understood the word) Ballyturk (also directed by Walsh) Cillian Murphy* has a scene where he energetically smashes vinyl singles by hurling them against the back wall of the set (brilliantly choreographed to the tune of each record). One hit at such a perfect angle that instead of shattering it ricocheted and flew like a sharp-edged Frisbee the depth of the Lyttelton stage and out into the auditorium over the ducking heads of patrons in about six rows of the stalls. Since Health and Safety no longer allow sweets to be thrown to kiddies at a panto these days we feel they must be informed immediately.

As they took their seats in the stalls, Phil’s companion for the evening muttered “I have no idea what this play is about”. Ninety minutes later neither he nor Phil were much wiser.

Review – Once, Phoenix Theatre

“It’s got an on-stage bar where you can buy your drinks during the interval!” *

Phil knew how to persuade Andrew to take in Once. That’s all it took.

In fact, it won last year’s Tony Award for Best Musical, and that it was based on an micro-budget indie film (winning an Oscar for best song, “Falling Slowly”) that we hadn’t seen and that it was a bit Oirish. But that was about it.

Even such scant knowledge seems to put one way ahead of the man on the 88. Mention Once to most people and they say, “What’s that?” It has slipped under the radar and really not helped by opening mere weeks after the previous year’s Best Musical Tony-Winning behemoth, Book of Mormon. But then that has a budget to pebbledash its publicity so generously you couldn’t possible not know about it.

But this show has another card up its sleeve. It’s at the Phoenix Theatre. We can’t remember when we were last there (Phil thinks it was probably Into the Woods in 1990) as it has been clogged up largely with that theatrical canker, Blood Brothers for 21 years.

Review – Misterman, National Theatre

Mr Andrew has booked this and although Mr Phil is never really sure what he’s going to see he felt like Mr Grumpy, Mr Silly and Mr Dyslexic rolled into one amorphous Day-glo shape when he realised that Mr Enda Walsh‘s play was a gritty monologue and nothing at all to do with Roger Hargreaves’ popular doodles.

Now the Whingers have given Aunt Enda a fairly wide berth since The Walworth Fiasco Farce almost four years ago but the lure of the very talented Mr Cillian Murphy was sufficiently strong to persuade the Whingers to rather graciously give the Irish playwright another go and really we do wonder if we weren’t paying attention last time because his 1999 play Misterman  is practially a compendium of WEW theatrical must-haves:

Review – The Walworth Farce, National Theatre

A major drama was played out at the National Monday evening.

In all the Whingers’ many years of theatre-going, never have they experienced  anything so tense, so immediate and so personally relevant.

There were moments of despair so profound they numbed the Whingers’ senses; and urgencies so imperative that adrenalin pumped through their veins.

Happily there was also hope, elation, redemption and a happy denouement which restored their faith in humanity.

Amazing stuff.

And once Andrew’s lost wallet had been recovered they went to see The Walworth Farce.