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
You wait a lifetime for a frothy wartime comedy by a gay Sir that opens with someone waking up the worse for wear and wondering who the stranger they picked up last night is and you get two in a little over a week. What are the chances?
First there was Sir Terence Rattigan’s 1943 While the Sun Shine‘s now we have Sir Noël Coward‘s 1939 Present Laughter. Read the rest of this entry »
“Stop this infernal pantomime!” shouts one of the Queens in Patrick Marber‘s version of Eugène Ionesco‘s Exit the King.
How many of us in this preview audience must have been thinking exactly the same? Yes, we’re nailing our colours to the mast straight away and saying what a dreadfully dreary evening this is. Even if it’s only 1 hour 40 minutes it feels much, much longer. Still, you can pass the time glancing round the audience and seeing if those on the ends of rows are slipping out discretely. Yes, some did. Lucky bastards. Read the rest of this entry »
Long, long ago, way back in 1977, before Andrew and Phil met, and “fiery philosophical debates” asking “fundamental questions about how we live” (oh dear) could still occupy the glittering West End rather than film-to-play adaptations or jukebox musicals, Phil saw the RSC production of Man and Superman at the Savoy Theatre starring Richard Pasco, Susan Hampshire, Nigel Havers and a vintage car.
Coincidentally, Andrew (who must have been struggling through puberty at the time) saw the same production in Malvern. Ain’t life strange? Read the rest of this entry »
We are of course far too indolent to check, but this is possibly our first conjoined review.
It’s a time thing really. We’re all behind, but in our defence there are parallels between these plays: both are “house”-titled, have on-stage, set-specific audience seating and are boisterously over-the-top comedic satires set in institutions run by dangerously potty people.
The Hothouse features John Simm, Simon Russell Beale, Indira Varma, John Heffernan, Clive Rowe and Christopher Timothy and the aforementioned chance to be up there with them. You’d be forgiven for assuming Andrew would have been there wouldn’t you? Read the rest of this entry »
Ok, sit down. Take a deep breath, take a Valium and take the day off. The Whingers are about to start chucking a few superlatives around.
You may well think you’ve come to the wrong place (indeed you almost certainly have) as it’s well documented that the Whingers don’t really do Shakespeare, especially the comedies as they’re usually even less comic than My Family.
But director Michael Grandage (named Best Director at the Evening Standard Theatre Awards for Othello / The Chalk Garden / Ivanov) can do little wrong at the moment in the Whingers’ eyes.
And last night he caused the Whingers actually to laugh. Not once, but over and over again. Out loud. At a Shakespeare play. Read the rest of this entry »
A West End Whinger 