Review – The Truth, Wyndham’s Theatre

People in the UK may have had enough of ghastly people who lie, deceive, betray, plot and do awful things behind so-called friend’s backs. This might make The Truth the worst possible time to pop up in the West End or it may possibly be entirely the opposite. Apposite and timely.

Michel (Alexander Hanson) is married to Samantha Bond the enigmatic Laurence (Tanya Franks) but he’s having a regular bit on the side with Alice (Frances O’Connor) when he’s not losing a sock or telling porkies to his wife. Trouble is Alice also happens to be the wife of Michel’s best friend Paul (Robert Portal). And that’s about all you really need to know as what follows is a slew of revelations about who knows what, who is lying and who thinks they are in full possession of the facts.

Review – Communicating Doors, Menier Chocolate Factory

In which Sir Alan Ayckbourn finds a Tardis in a hotel room where the tea-making facilities should be.

Strange one this. Communicating Doors is a “comic thriller” set in a hotel suite with a cutaway to the bathroom. It’s not often you see what the back of a bidet looks like, let alone find a broom cupboard that revolves and also turns out to be a time portal.

Review – Lindsay Lohan in Speed – the – Plow, Playhouse Theatre

Oh, Lindsay, Lindsay, Lindsay…

No, not because she screwed up, far from it, but this must be the most Lindsay-heavy production ever. Two out of the cast of three in David Mamet‘s satirical poke at Hollywood, Speed-the-Plow are Lindsays, Lindsay Lohan and Nigel Lindsay and it’s also directed by a Lindsay (Posner). Poor Richard Schiff must feel the odd one out.

And to complete the Lindsay List, Mamet was once married to the actress Lindsay Crouse. Phew!

Review – The Winslow Boy, Old Vic

“Is it the one about the postal order?” queried Andrew, who, like Phil, often confuses Terrence Rattigan’s postal order play The Winslow Boy with his celebration-of-gravy play The Browning Version.

Of course the Whingers both wistfully remember postal orders. So their pre-show briefing to their partially younger, partially foreign (or both) entourage included memories of opening birthday cards from aunties hoping that a postal order might flutter out.

Review – The Turn of the Screw, Almeida Theatre

Those with no interest in Gothic theatrical hokum which seeks to titillate audiences and make them jump in their seats should look away now.

And those of a more nervous disposition might think about placing a plastic bag between their derrière and velveteen Almeida theatre bench.

This is the turn of Rebecca Lenkiewicz* at Henry James‘ ghost story; the famous novella which has inspired a slew of TV, opera and film versions and comes with no small amount of pedigree and a degree of baggage. Many will already know that The Turn of the Screw is not – as the title might suggest to the uninitiated – set in a prison wing’s shower block.

Review – Uncle Vanya, Vaudeville Theatre

Oh dear, oh dear. We shouldn’t really be surprised but the Whingers seem to be of an age.

We had always taken Uncle Vanya to be a character for the almost-elderly –  one of the last big actorly stops before King Lear.

But Vanya is practically a child. In Lindsay Posner‘s new production (translation by Christopher Hampton) they have even aged him up six years (to edge a little closer to the actor Ken Stott‘s actual age). This is what you get for reading up on things. It was all a bit traumatic and without being too specific, let’s just say that it won’t be long before the Whingers are perceiving Lear as some kind of callow youth too. It’s all rather depressing.

Review – Abigail’s Party, Menier Chocolate Factory

Andrew loves olives. Phil can’t stand them.

So 50% of the Whingers like olives then.

Which of course will mean squiddly dit if you’ve never seen Abigail’s Party. Extraordinarily one of the Whingers’ party at this preview at the Menier Chocolate Factory had never seen it before. Well, we say party, there were five of us and not strictly speaking there together, but by chance. But five people and a party? Friends of Abigail will understand where we’re going with this…

Tricky one. The 1977 TV recording of Mike Leigh‘s comedy of social manners is so well-remembered by many of us that anyone putting on a new production must also feel they’re putting on a straight-jacket and taking a leap into the known. In Whinger circles it is probably the most frequently quoted modern play (well, any play then; we are not know for intentionally lapsing into swathes of Shakespeare). It is so ingrained in the Whingers’ psyches that Andrew still insists on offering Phil olives just so he can lapse into Bevspeak.

Tamper with it and you’ll incur the wrath of its fans, remain too faithful and it might pale by comparison.

Review – Noises Off, The Old Vic

“If we can just get through the play once tonight – for doors and sardines. That’s what it’s all about, doors and sardines. Getting on, getting off. Getting the sardines on, getting the sardines off. That’s farce. That’s – that’s the theatre. That’s life.” 

Continuing our January mopping up of the theatrical spills we’ve somehow previously missed…

Review – Butley, Duchess Theatre

For obvious reasons the Whingers aren’t ones to hold mirrors up to themselves. The first time Phil tried it he accidentally cured Tennyson’s writer’s block, the last time Agatha Christie’s.

But watching David Cameron’s Old Etonian mucker Dominic West as the titular Butley should have proved uncomfortable viewing.

Unlike Butley the Whingers have neither wives nor have they spread their seed (but if they did they doubt they’d be able to remember their issue’s name either), they’re not steeped in academia and if they had even a soupçon of his alcohol-marinated, tartly cutting wit we’d they’d be deeply gratified. Low self-esteem? Let’s not go there. But the Whingers have been known to enjoy the odd tincture.

Review – House of Games, Almeida Theatre (Phil’s review)

Golly gosh. Can it really be a full year since the Whingers’ minds were not as one. Last September two consecutive shows (Talent and Ben Hur Live!) created a gulf wider than the one a freshly-banged-up popster created in Hampstead’s Snappy Snaps.

Andrew was adamant, “I’d sooner sit through Passion again.”

Review – Carousel without Lesley Garrett, Savoy Theatre

The Whingers love collective nouns.

A peep of chickens. A pitying of doves. A musty of beavers. A flagellation of ferrets. A scolding of seamstresses. A sneer of butlers. An inebriation of whingers. A shrivel of critics. Particularly the last one.

The Whingers have coined one or two of their own: it cans only a matter of time before “a Fram of theatrical disasters” passes into everyday usage.

But what is the collective noun for understudies? (Put your thinking cap on Ian Shuttleworth) An indisposition of understudies? A disappointment of understudies? A groan of understudies? A Tennant of understudies? A McCutcheon of understudies?*