Posts Tagged ‘Kay Murphy’

Review – Xanadu, Southwark Playhouse

Tuesday 17 November 2015

17993_show_portrait_largeOh how we’ve waited.

Yes, we’ve waited and waited for the Godot that we feared might never arrive. It’s taken a full eight years for Xanadu to come to London; the the highlight of our 2007 sojourn to New York and not just because there was a strike on Broadway and it was one of the few shows still running. We praise the gods it still was.

Andrew even spent a not inconsiderable amount of time bending the ear of a well-known producer trying to convince her (a clue?) that this was the show she absolutely had to bring to London. He even put on his casting director’s hat by suggesting Sheridan Smith in the lead. Sadly bigger fish were in both their frying pans. Read the rest of this entry »

Review – The Tailor-Made Man, Arts Theatre

Thursday 28 February 2013

The_TailorMade_Man-1-200-200-100-cropThe Whingers had only the vaguest memories of the story of William Haines (Phil was sure he’d read about him in Kenneth Anger’s Hollywood Babylon but wasn’t certain), the Hollywood leading man turned interior designer-to-the-stars. But then most of the Whingers’ memories are vague these days.

Haines (Dylan Turner) came to fame in the twenties after winning a talent show (perhaps X Factor winners should consider enrolling in interior design courses to ensure they have a fall-back) and was what we used to call a homosexual, but one who wouldn’t stick to convention or studio rules and lived for 50 years with his ex-marine partner Jimmie (Bradley Clarkson) in an relationship so open that his second home was the docks and his film career (which included Tell It to the Marines, Navy Blues and The Marines Are Coming) ended when he was arrested for picking up a jolly jack tar. The Whingers are tempted to stop sniffing their Magic Marker pens for a moment and use them to alter the posters for The Tailor-Made Man, a musical about Haines’ nautically nuanced life, to the equally apt The Sailor-Mad Man. Read the rest of this entry »