Review – Mr Footes’s Other Leg – Theatre Royal Haymarket

Groundhog Day for Phil and Andrew.

Back to reality after travelling in Indochina with the humdrum repetition of daily routines. So what could be more appropriate to add to our Groundhoggishness than revisiting a show that we’d already been thoroughly entertained by at Hampstead?

Review – Mr Foote’s Other Leg, Hampstead Theatre

We must declare an interest of sorts.

Ian Kelly, who wrote this play, Mr Foote’s Other Leg, once generously donated two of the drawings that he created live on stage in The Pitman Painters as a charity raffle prize for a The West End Whingers’ party. Remember those days? We do. But only just.

Based on Kelly’s own award-winning biography (which goes by the same name – and why wouldn’t it? It’s a nifty title) of Samuel Foote, 18th century actor, impressionist, comedian, satirist, warm up man, pamphleteer, female impersonator, playwright, theatre manager of The Haymarket and writer of the first true-crime bestseller. He also, rather carelessly lost a leg, but that wasn’t to lead to his downfall. Other events led to that.

Review – Rocket to the Moon, National Theatre

It’s astonishing what you can pick up at the theatre. For instance: Phil, who sleeps on his face (insert your own gag here), had no idea it was bad for him.

Along with sucking pacifiers (insert second own gag here) it is apparently one of the “enemies of a beautiful mouth”. It’s far too late for the Whingers which could explain why they cover their faces for photo opportunities.

But if any of you younger people  turn up at Dr Stark’s (Joseph Millson) 1930s New York dental practice you should heed these and other warnings on the marvellous posters which adorn the walls of the waiting room.

Mind you, it’s unlikely that you will because it’s a play. And also because Dr Stark has very few patients: just one in the nigh-on-three-hours the Whingers spent there.

Yet Stark is always staying late “working”. What could he be doing? If you were his wife you might think he was having an affair.

Review – The Priory, Royal Court Theatre

New Year’s Eve: the night of the year everyone wants to have a good time but nobody does.

Andrew is already preparing for his own unique celebrations by folding his Winceyette jim-jams, tucking them under his pillow and fretting about whether he will have cocoa or Horlicks. He will of course then, as ever, retire to bed at 9.30pm knowing that this time he’ll wake up in a year in which he’ll get to see Debbie Reynolds and possibly Dame Julie Andrews and be happily oblivious by the time the rest of the country is trilling Auld Lang Syne.

But unlike Andrew, some people never learn. Certainly not the characters in Michael Wynne‘s seasonal comedy The Priory who have been gathered together by Kate (Jessica Hynes) to see in the new year in, er, The Priory. Sadly it is not set in the Whingers favourite rehab retreat but a country house that’s so the middle of nowhere there isn’t even a mobile signal for the thirtysomething media types (writer, “resting” actor, TV producer etc). Yes there is no escape. And a mysterious hooded figure is glimpsed outside the window. The Agatha Christie set-up (updated to cope with plot-sapping cell phones) looked rather promising.

Review – Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, National Theatre

A Accurately Advertised running time for once. 65 minutes long.

B Brevity. The Whingers approve.

C Coughing. Had the National imported the audience from Oliver! wholesale?

D Don’t people bother with cough sweets theses days?

E Every Good Boy Deserves Favour is a play for actors and orchestra (Southbank Sinfonia) by Tom Stoppard and André Previn. It’s a rarely performed curiosity. An extravagance. But is it worth the effort?