Review – Really Old, Like Forty Five, National Theatre.

The Whingers have been thinking of their retirement.

Not in the sense of contemplating sitting around watching Countdown (they’re already partial to that) or airing their plus fours on the golf courses of this land, nor even considering their first Saga cruise. No, they’re not at that stage quite yet, though obviously (assuming the ongoing ratings fracas doesn’t escalate) Phil is closer to that end of life than Andrew. And of course their future well-being is about as reliable as an Iraq Inquiry with hardly a pension-pot to piss in. No, they mean retiring from whinging as they’ve witnessed a widow of opportunity which could complete their own critics’ circle.

Review – …some trace of her, National Theatre

Andrew will go to any lengths to avoid visiting the Cottesloe Theatre.

Claiming rather grandly that he would be “flying back from a business trip to Hamburg” Phil was forced to fly solo with his first ever visit to a Katie Mitchell production: …some trace of her.

So elaborate was Andrew’s ruse that he even phoned Phil from the “departure lounge” just to add to the veracity of his story. “Airport noises” could be heard in the background, the bing-bong of a tannoy, a screaming child, and Andrew’s own weary “I’m at an airport” irritation all helped his painstaking fiction. Was Andrew actually still at home twiddling around with the knob on his wireless?

So …some trace of her then, but no trace of Andrew…