Review – Crazy For You, Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre

It seemed like the least demanding way to ease the Whingers back into the reality of London Theatre (In the rum world of the Whingers the Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre‘s annual summer musical comedy counts as “reality”).

And it’s usually a dead cert (Hello, Dolly!, Gigi etc.), one of the Whingers’ annual highlights.

And Crazy For You has been showered with five star reviews, the reliable Timothy Sheader directs, it boasts a Gershwin score and – most importantly to the Whingers – it offered a welcome return to the dignity of reserved seating following weeks of queuing (usually in the rain) for shows in the frenzy that constitutes the Edinburgh Fringe.

But having been overindulged by shows mostly lasting no more than an hour, how would the Whingers cope with an interval? Would they depart thinking it was all over? Would their attention spans, unsteady at best, be able to cope or would they be off seeking a late night cabaret to round off their evening before persuading themselves to have “one” for the road in the Gilded Balloon’s Loft bar until 6am (it’s an Edinburgh thing)?

Review – Lend Me A Tenor – The Musical, Gielgud Theatre

Cast your minds back. Did we not suffer last year when we visited Ken Ludwig‘s original play on which Lend Me A Tenor – The Musical is based? The Whingers are nothing if not slow learners.

But in our defence it was simply too intriguing:  what could the addition of songs contribute – apart from making it longer and even more draining? Can one really make a musical out of a farce? Wouldn’t those ditties slow down and undermine the whole door-slamming raison d’être of the genre?

And coming hot on the heels of the early demises of Hair and the lamented (by us, and almost us alone) loss of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg another failure could the Gielgud Theatre be seeking to snatch the Shaftesbury (Home of the Flops until Hairspray came along) Theatre’s crown?

But the Gods of Optimism had been working overtime, casting two Whinger’s favourite folk: Matthew Kelly and Joanna Riding (Ms Riding presumably was presumably not even required to move out of the dressing room she occupied when appearing in Umbrellas) and the trap sprang shut.

Would hilarity ensue when the world’s greatest tenor Tito Merelli (Michael Matus) came to 1934’s Cleveland to save the ailing Grand Opera Company by giving his Otello,  suddenly becoming  indisposed requiring the director’s geeky assistant Max (Damian Humbley) to step in? Or would it be about as much fun as the Go Compare ads?

Review – Lend Me A Tenor, Music Box Theatre, Broadway

The Broadway Bellyachers’ last show on The Broadway was Ken Ludwig‘s “howlingly funny” (Time Out New York), “hilarious” (New York Post) Lend Me A Tenor.

It came highly recommended by real people too, but most promisingly of all Charles Isherwood dissed it and so far his opinions had proved to be the very anti-matter to our opinions (which are clearly therefore the ones that matter – see what we did there?).

Anyhoo, we hadn’t agreed with him on anything. Surely we were destined to adore Lend Me A Tenor?