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
A front of curtain prologue, performed by a precocious whippersnapper warning us that we are about to see “the longest play ever” was never going to be music to our ears.
But we had been warned. Fanny & Alexander was running close to 4 hours at early previews. Max Webster‘s production is now a tighter Fanny at a relatively sprightly 3 and a half hours. Read the rest of this entry »
Bored with your spouse or partner? Suffering from complacency in your relationship? Too many silent dinners where you’ve lost the art of conversation?
If you’re toying – however vaguely – with splitting up with your other half, then shuffle along to the St James Theatre for Scenes from a Marriage and dump them gently over a post-show drink.
They won’t be upset. In fact, after watching this play, they’ll probably thank you for it, realising they’ve avoided the years of misery that lie ahead and that a faithful pet and a TV dinner for one can be surprisingly comforting. Read the rest of this entry »
This was the show the Whingers had been waiting for.
Not because the Whingers love Sondheim (they do). Not because they wanted to see if Trevor Nunn could atone for the terrible sins he committed with Gone With the Wind – The Musical! (he has). Or to see if, at 34, Hannah Waddingham would convince as the youngest ever Desirée Armfeldt (she did).
No, rising like a shining beacon of common sense and democracy above all of this was the news that A Little Night Music was to be the first production at the Menier Chocolate Factory where they dropped their absurd and unpopular unreserved seating policy*. Yeah! Good old Menier, the Whingers hoops had never been so cocked (or should that be the other way round?). Read the rest of this entry »
A West End Whinger 