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
It’s not everyday you see Christopher Timothy portrayed on stage. Or Larry Lamb come to that.
Though whilst the latter is actually the first editor of The Sun newspaper (as we know it) Mr Timothy’s connection will be remembered by those of us old enough to remember him as the voice of their TV ads.
Ink is James (This House, The Vote) Graham‘s latest foray into the world of what we call recent history. The creation of The Sun newspaper as a tabloid. Read the rest of this entry »
Goodness. We were there.
No, we hadn’t expected to be either.
Phil won tickets for an “unprecedented experiment and a major innovation in theatre and television”, The Vote in (appropriately enough) a ballot.
We say “won”, he was aware he had to pay for them of course. Yet it still felt like one of those “competitions” where you think you’ve won a free holiday then find you have to pay for your flights and accommodation at absurdly inflated rates after making a long premium rate phone call. 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 »
James Graham’s play at the Bush about a former History Boy with synæsthesia is very much orange – an orange somewhere between Jacobs cream crackers and Flymo. Or perhaps slightly more like a satsuma left over from Christmas 1967 in the first week of February but with the distinct taste of a recently brushed brick. There is the unmistakable aroma of a recently unfolded pacamac.
Graham’s dialogue resembles the leaf of an Antirrhinum but with less of the smell of EPNS cutlery. Kate O’Flynn is like Nesquik. There’s an amusing turn from Simon Merrells (who is in The Wolfman – how periwinkle is that?) which just IS a bottle of Liebfraumilch rolling along a caravan table on the Gower peninsula at Whitsun.
At two and a half hours it begins to feel like the sound of a Bel Cream Maker when brushed up against the tag of a Ladybird t-shirt from Woollies (the Telford branch). But nowithstanding, it’s got that distinctive salty sound one associates with an episode of Oh, Brother! starring Derek Nimmo.
To summarise: it’s exactly like the feel of a Dinnefords bottle through a Findus crispy pancake.
Rating
A West End Whinger 