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
Having barely recovered from the 11.45pm curtain of Angels in America Part 2, Phil arrived at The Ferryman to discover a running time of 3 hours 20 minutes.
Playwrights seem to have an awful lot to say for themselves.
This is Jez Butterworth‘s latest epic. The fastest-selling play in Royal Court Theatre history apparently. A June transfer to The Gielgud was announced well ahead of any previews. Read the rest of this entry »
The Whingers have to make big decisions too you know.
Phil was so incandescent when he heard incandescent light bulbs were being phased out that he stocked up forgetting that most of his home was already lit by halogen down lighters anyway, with just one lamp (which he rarely switches on) using the old bulbs.
He never learns (he was the same when gas lighting was phased out). There’s no chance he’ll get through all of them in his lifetime. What should he do with his box of 50 bulbs?
In George Bernard Shaw’s what-it-says-on-the-tin play The Doctor’s Dilemma bachelor and newly-knighted Sir Colenso Ridgeon (Aden Gillett) is also in a quandary. He treats typhoid, the plague and has developed a new treatment for tuberculosis. If only he could find a cure for the highly contagious modern malady Superfluous Like Syndrome which afflicts the younger (and some not so young) generation of today; introducing several unnecessary ‘like’s into every sentence they utter.* Read the rest of this entry »
It’s a brave man who calls his play 13.
The opportunities for easy gags (who us?) are almost irresistible.
But then this is the Mike Bartlett who bravely presented his Cock at the Royal Court two years ago which led to much unseemly schoolboy giggling from the back of the Whingers’ unruly class.
Imagine if he ever writes a play called Inch. We can only imagine the programme compilers having great fun debating the order of his writing credits.
So, inspired to defy superstition, the Whingers will present 13 reasons why you may (or may not) wish to fondle a rabbit’s foot in your pocket and visit the National Theatre. Read the rest of this entry »
You’re a casting director. You’ve got Hitler’s favourite play sitting on your desk. Who you gonna call? Ian McDiarmid! Read the rest of this entry »
A West End Whinger 