Review – Carrie’s War, Apollo Theatre

It was with some dismay that the Whingers entered the Apollo Theatre auditorium yesterday afternoon to find it crawling with, well, school children.

They were already downhearted at having inadvertently elected to spend July’s seemingly sole sunny afternoon inside a theatre and under any other circumstances the lure of sunshine and 70%-off sales in the nicer stores of Regent Street would have had them ripping up their tickets without a second thought.

But they were at Carrie’s War at the invitation of the producer who had emailed the Whingers to ask: “Have you forgotten us? We produce a whole show, await your comments, but find you seem to have left us as yet unvisited?” By the end of the exchange the Whingers had eventually decided to invite themselves to the intriguing prospect of a Tuesday matinee (whoever heard of such a thing?) and poor Mr Producer was simply asking “Why won’t you let me have the last word?”.

And so the Whingers found themselves walking in to the Apollo feeling rather grand until they were bumped back to earth at the horror of finding themselves to be not only about the oldest people in the stalls, but seemingly be some decades. Deep breath.

Review – Waste by Granville Barker at the Almeida

The credit must be thoroughly crunching.

After rattling around in in the less-than-full Donmar auditorium at Monday night’s Creditors the Whingers witnessed another rare event last night: the Almeida auditorium less-than-packed to the rafters.

Perhaps the theatre-going public just couldn’t get excited about Harley Granville Barker’s Waste. Perhaps, like Phil, they assumed it to be a piece of agitprop about the sin of not recycling.

If they did believe that, many of those who turned up were clearly disappointed as the auditorium displayed even more empty seats after the interval. Perhaps it was due to Phil’s new fragrance.

The Whingers had some sympathy (how often do you hear that?) with them; they were themselves slightly ambivalent about returning for the remainder of the marathon (4 act 3 hour) show.

Return they did. But did they make the right decision?