It seems no time at all since the last West End production of Noël Coward‘s Private Lives. Turns out it’s just over 3 years. If it hadn’t been for that production (starring Kim Cattrall) the Whingers would probably never have seen Love Never Dies – well not in preview at least – and look what that led to. It’s a long story, you should ask us about it one day… Read the rest of this entry »
Posts Tagged ‘Jonathan Kent’
Review – Private Lives, Gielgud Theatre
Wednesday 3 July 2013Review – Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Adelphi Theatre
Tuesday 20 March 2012
The last time we went to the Adelphi Theatre was to see Love Never Dies. Nice to see it again, this time for a check-up of the transferred Sweeney Todd which we saw in Chichester when a transfer seemed inevitable and well-deserved.
And pretty much everything is in place just as it should be although sadly there was no sign of Andrew Lloyd Webber in the little boy’s room on this occasion. Read the rest of this entry »
Review – Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Chichester Festival Theatre
Thursday 13 October 2011Notes for Andrew who is due to see this within a few weeks. 
Boring travel details first: We put ourselves in an upbeat mood by eating pies (inappropriately cold) as we travelled to Chichester before being thrown unceremoniously off the train at Barnham. Jolly mood quickly dissipated. Allow plenty of time to get there.
No direct trains back to London. Swathes of grumpy Sondheim aficionados cluttering the platform. Return journey: 3 and a half hours.
Do the dream team of Messrs Ball and Staunton appreciate the lengths we go to?
Director Jonathan Kent has updated Sweeney Todd‘s melodrama to 1930s. Why? It’s a piece of Victorian Grand Guignol (Music and lyrics Stephen Sondheim, book Hugh Wheeler). Updating adds nothing. Fortunately it doesn’t detract too much. Doesn’t Kent realise “You Gotta Get a Gimmick” is from a different Sondheim show? Read the rest of this entry »
Review – Emperor and Galilean, National Theatre
Tuesday 14 June 2011
You’re a casting director. You’ve got Hitler’s favourite play sitting on your desk. Who you gonna call? Ian McDiarmid! Read the rest of this entry »
Review – Oedipus with Ralph Fiennes, National Theatre
Tuesday 14 October 2008
The Whingers love their mothers of course, just not in that way.
But how could they resist the opportunity to take in Ralph Fiennes as that titular and original mother-f**** Oedipus at the National Theatre?
Oedipal themes then; whatever made director Jonathan Kent* think of Fiennes for this? Was he having a larf? Not of course that we’re implying anything Oedipal in Fiennes relationship with Francesca Annis but they were famously coupled after starring together when she played Gertrude to Fiennes’ Hamlet. Read the rest of this entry »
Review – Marguerite – The Musical! at the Theatre Royal Haymarket
Sunday 11 May 2008
It’s not every day you get a chance to see the kazongas of the person who won the Theatregoers’ Award for the Most Popular Musical Actress in The Last 21 Years (or one of her kazongas, anyway).
But that was the surprising position the West End Whingers found themselves in at a preview of the new musical Marguerite ( – The Musical!). Read the rest of this entry »
A West End Whinger 