Posts Tagged ‘Jude Law’
Monday 6 January 2014
A bit late getting around to this. But since it’s probably your first day back at work, let’s face it you’re not really intending to do any real work are you? Isn’t that why you’re here?
Anyhoo, a year ago we speculated that 2013 might be an unlucky year for some.
The unfortunate roof collapse at the Apollo Theatre proved this both true and untrue. Unlucky for anyone involved, but lucky in the sense that it could easily have been so much worse.
When Phil discussed the incident with his sister they realised they’d been to the Apollo together only once, ironically to the musical Up On the Roof.
But, as Phil watched events unfold on BBC News that night, there was a rather flattering moment for London Theatre audiences. Returning to the studio, after watching people describe what they’d seen inside the Apollo, the news anchor remarked that he’d never heard such articulate eyewitness reports before.
Unlucky for theatre critics too as they were picked off one by one. Who wasn’t reminded of the Vincent Price film Theatre of Blood? It seemed newspapers either didn’t want arts critics any more, or didn’t want the one they already had. And in one case, apparently found the spurious excuse of pants-dropping for dropping their scribe.
But it seems the critics are finding other outlets. The Telegraph’s Tim Walker is expanding on his appearance in Top Hat to play God in Spamalot. How long before we get to see Libby Purves’ Grizabella the glamour theatreCat, Mark Shenton disrobing in Hair or theatregoers saying “Hello” to Tim Walker’s Dolly! ?
It was also the year Andrew decided he didn’t want to write for the Whingers anymore. For the record, he went of his own accord, quashing the scurrilous rumours that Phil staged a coup after finding a rather inappropriate image of Andrew in his jim jams on the internet.
So without further ado, here are Phil’s choices for the year, just so he can use the word ‘actress’ again and not group everyone together as ‘actors’… Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in West End Whingers | 16 Comments »
Tags: Almeida Theatre, American Psycho, Apollo Theatre, Benedict Wong, Candide, Cecilia Noble, Charlotte Wakefield, Chimerica, entertainment, Es Devlin, Evening Standard Theatre Awards, Finn Ross, Helen Mirren, Henry V, Jude Law, Killian Donnelly, Libby Purves, London, Mark Shenton, Peter and Alice, review, Stephen Ashfield, The Book of Mormon, theatre, Tim Walker, west end, Whingies
Thursday 28 November 2013
As we rush into winter, the ‘C’ word is on everyone’s lips. Yes, tis the season when The Consumptives return to the theatre.
Turn off your mobile phone, but make sure you bring your cough along and share it with your fellow audience members throughout the play.
But it wasn’t just conspicuous consumption that provided substantial distractions throughout Henry V, the last of Michael Grandage‘s 5 play season at the Noel Coward Theatre; there was also the case of Jude Law‘s trousers. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in West End Whingers | 9 Comments »
Tags: Ashley Zhangazha, Christopher Oram, entertainment, Henry V, Jessie Buckley, Jude Law, London, Michael Grandage, Noel Coward Theatre, play, review, Ron Cook, theatre, west end, William Shakespeare
Friday 12 August 2011
Dear Andrew,
They say you can’t be in two places at the same time, but obviously the Whingers can. You swanned off to the Edinburgh Festival and unlike last year, you haven’t even had the courtesy to send even a postcard.
Your departing instructions were to “mop the surrounds”: take in the Pinter you suggested or perhaps the Caryl Churchill. Thanks a bundle.
Then you handed me the much sought-after tickets for Anna Christie – hot presumably because Jude Law is in it and not because you’ve been holding them in clammy palms. And it is a Eugene O’Neill to boot (not a master of the art of brevity) while you’ll be seeing shows in Edinburgh that last what – an hour or less?
But what would you have made of it? In a Being John Malkovich sort of way I’m going to try the unthinkable and get inside your head and imaginge what you’d have made of it. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in West End Whingers | 3 Comments »
Tags: Anna Christie, David Hayman, Donmar Warehouse, entertainment, Eugene O'Neill, Jenny Galloway, Jude Law, London, play, review, Rob Ashford, Ruth Wilson, theatre, west end
Thursday 28 January 2010
Well, the fire door had been carelessly left open so like model citizens we went in and pulled it firmly shut behind us and then it turned out we were in the Price of Wales Theatre and there was free drink and Rachel Weisz and Jude Law were and so we thought, what the hell, and stayed for The Critics’ Circle Theatre Awards 2009.
Of course, it’s pretty much the definition of “yesterday’s news”* (well, you try filing a blog post when they’ve been topping up your wine glass not stop for for three hours and to be fair Andrew was tweeting it live) and so you know that Weisz and Law were among the winners. We sort of guessed that when we saw them there. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in West End Whingers | 1 Comment »
Tags: Alia Bano, Arthrus Smith, Benedict Nightingale, Blanche Marvin, Charles Spencer, Christopher Oram, Claire Allfree, Critics Circle Theatre Awards 2010, Donmar Warehouse, Dvid Benedict, Jerusalem, Jez Butterworth, Jude Law, London, Lyric Hammersmith, Mark Rylance, Mark Shenton, Michael Grandage, Rachel Weisz, Royal Court, Rupert Goold, Sonia Friedman, Spring Awakening, theatre, Tim Walker, Tom Sturridge, west end
Tuesday 29 December 2009
With another year rapidly drawing to a close it is time for the Whingers to reflect and indulge themselves in a little more navel gazing – not our own navels, as that would be even duller than usual for you – but the innies and outies of the sometimes fluffy navels of London’s artistic directors, producers, players and theatres and award The Whingies to the most outstanding ones.
But first our own navels: 2009 has been a year of heady excitement for the Whingers. It was a year that saw them inadvertently whip up controversy and heated debate again and again and again.
It was also a year in which artistic differences reared their ugly heads threatening the very fabric of the West End Whingers, a tear in the polyester bed-sheet of their existence so delicate that a clumsily clipped toenail might have been all it took to rent it from headboard to toe straight down the middle.
The Whingers were courted by the British Broadcasting Company, libelled as “muckrakers” in the National Press, lampooned in song and Phil had his pithiest aphorism to date quoted (yet mainly without attribution) by national critics. There was an evening of confusion in which Phil was mistaken for Michael Grandage and the Whingers finally received an award for their artistic endeavours.
And we finally got the opportunity to choose between the Merlot and the Marlowe.
So, without further do, here are the results of the Kentish Town and Vauxhall juries: Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in West End Whingers | 11 Comments »
Tags: Andrew Scott, Annie Get Your Gun, awards, Cock, Comedians, Complicit, David Dawson, Derren Brown's Enigma, England People Very Nice, Enjoy, Entertaining Mr Sloane, entertainment, Finbar Lynch, Forbidden Broadway, fringe, Hamlet, Hello Dolly!, Imelda Staunton, James Macdonald, Jerusalem, Jez Butterworth, Jude Law, London, Luke Treadaway, Madame de Sade, Mark Rylance, Mark Umbers, Menier Chocolate Factory, Michael Grandage, Mike Bartlett, musical, Naked Boys Singing, National Theatre, off-West End, Old Vic, On the Waterfront, Over There, Priscilla Queen of the Desert, Public Property, Punk Rock, review, Robert Daws, Royal Court, Simon Paisley Day, Spring Awakening, Sweet Charity, The Fastest Clock in the Universe, theatre, Three Days of Rain, Tom Sturridge, Tony Sheldon, Too Close To The Sun, Waiting for Godot, west end
Thursday 4 June 2009
Who could have envisaged that Phil would get to direct Mr Jude Law in Mr Shakespeare‘s Hamlet in the auspicious Donmar West End season?
For in an implausible and rather Shakespearean case of mistaken identity that’s how it seemed on Tuesday night.* During the interval Phil bumped into someone he’d met on a work trip a couple of years ago who turned to her companion and introduced Phil with the words “This is Michael Grandage, the director”.
How Phil wished he had carried on the conceit but Andrew was laughing at the idea too much. The woman was quite insistent “But you look just like him.”
Ah well, put it down to it being the hottest night of the year or perhaps the fact that Phil had walked head first into a plate glass window in Spain a few days earlier and radically altered his facial features (considerably for the better, clearly). Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in West End Whingers | 20 Comments »
Tags: Alex Waldmann, Christopher Oram, David Burke, Donmar Warehouse, entertainment, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Hamlet, Jude Law, Kevin R McNally, London, Matt Ryan, Michael Grandage, Neil Austin, Penelope Wilton, review, Ron Cook, theatre, west end, William Shakespeare, Wyndham's Theatre