Review – The Motherf**ker with the Hat, National Theatre

“Why are you going to see that?” asked a nonplussed Andrew when Phil mentioned he was off to see The Motherf**ker with the Hat.

“I’d heard of it. They did it on the Broadway with somebody famous” was Phil’s rather lame response.

Anyhoo, Phil did a little research, found out the star name he couldn’t remember was Chris Rock and then discovered that the National’s version featured Ricardo Chavira who was Carlos Solis in Desperate Housewives (Mr Eva Longoria in the show, for the uninitiated) and someone from Broadway recreating their Tony-nominated performance.

With Phil’s interest sufficiently piqued he then found himself on the horns of a dilemma. Would he throw caution to the wind and do The Full Shenton, putting the title in without the asterisks or go down the TFL advertising route and blank out the offending word entirely. Rather cowardly he opted for he National’s poster/programme/cast list version. He has Andrew to consider don’t ya know.

Review – Handbagged, Vaudeville Theatre

Strange how things come in pairs.

Phil recently saw two Nunns back to back and now this is his second play in a row portraying living royals.

Of course the Queen is missing from Mike Bartlett’s King Charles III but in Moira Buffini‘s offering, Handbagged, she’s very much alive. There’s two Queens; an older version, Q (Marion Bailey) and one younger, Liz (Lucy Robinson). But some may feel it should come with a warning, “this play contains two Margaret Thatchers”.

Review – Disconnect, Royal Court Theatre

The Whingers were feeling a little disconnected themselves on Tuesday evening having spent the day fielding queries left, right and centre as the Paint Never Dries media scrum centred rather discombobulatingly around them. Well, it was actually centred around Love Never Dies, but it’s as close as the Whingers are ever likely to get to being at the centre of a media scrum. Looking it up in Wikipedia it seems that the Whingers were probably the number eights in the media scrum and interestingly the players in this position tend to have the physical strength of a tight forward along with the mobility and pace of loose forwards. Really, what else is there to be said on the matter?