Review – Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, Apollo Theatre

Everybody has been talking about Everybody’s Talking About Jamie and dusting it with the glitter of 4 and 5 star reviews as though glitter were about to be banned.

Trouble is we’ve seen this sort of brouhaha before. And you don’t have to go back too far to look at the West End’s ever-expanding graveyard of British Musicals that were garlanded with superlatives at the time but were either near misses (Bend it Like Beckham) or totally lame misfires (cf. Mrs Henderson Presents, The Girls, Made in Dagenham). Critics are all too ready to big up the latest crock.

Review – Matilda, Cambridge Theatre

Well you don’t have to be Mystic Meg (whatever happened to her?*) to predict the Olivier Award winners at next year’s ceremony.

We’ve dusted off our crystal balls and see the Best Performance in a Supporting Role in a Musical Award forcing either Nigel Harman (Shrek) or Sharon D Clarke (Ghost) to clear a space on the mantlepiece for the trophy.

Now we’re adjusting our bespoke turbans to say the Best Actor in a Musical award is in the bag: one Bertie Carvel for his Miss Trunchbull. Likewise the Best Musical Award, which should go the way of The Evening Standard Awards earlier this week. And who knows, the final musical category could well be filled by the young gals who take the titular role in Matilda The Musical.

Review – Matilda, RSC Courtyard Theatre, Stratford upon Avon

The Whingers were brought up on a diet of Enid Blyton and The Water Babies so there were mixed feelings about trailing all the way to Stratford Upon Avon to see the RSC’s new musical Matilda, based on the Roald Dahl story. So mixed, in fact, that Phil ended up not going.

Review – Corrie!, The Lowry Theatre

One of Phil’s earliest memories is of being very upset, knocking on the bathroom door and shouting, “Mum, Martha Longhurst* is dead.”

Yes, Coronation Street has been going for 50 years; Phil has been watching for most of those; Jonathan Harvey has been working on it for six years; and he must have spent an entire afternoon writing this “affectionate romp through 50 years”: Corrie!

Still, the “clip” genre is a forgiving one and it has to be said that the Whingers didn’t feel that their trip all the way to the Manchester and back had been at allwasted.

Indeed the day passed swiftly and happily with much whinging to be done about (inter alia): the architectural horror of Euston station, the fact that small children are permitted in the Quiet Coach on a Virgin Train; that parents don’t think twice about seating their small children in the Quiet Coach on a Virgin Train; the lack of air-conditioning and in-seat lighting on Virgin Trains, the ludicrously labyrinthine ticket pricing structure requiring minutes of tortuous explanation over the PA (even in the Quiet Carriage) from what used to be called the Guard and the lack – despite its canal side setting – of a decent walking route from Manchester to The Lowry.

Review – Enjoy, Gielgud Theatre

It has taken rather a long time for the Whingers to make their way round to the Gielgud Theatre to take in Enjoy.

Which is odd, really, when you think about it: the combination of a play by national treasure Alan Bennett with Alison Steadman and the son of a Doctor Who (David Troughton) leading the cast would seem to be irresistible fodder to the average Whinger.

What took them so long? Was it the subject matter? Would watching an ageing partnership (one slipping into senility, the other infirm) prove uncomfortable viewing? Did Andrew sense that it might be depressing rather than entertaining to witness a possible future tending to Phil’s needs by massaging immobile limbs and reminding him when to pee.