The 2012 Whingie Awards – the very worst and the not so bad

Inappropriately, since it was the Olympic year, we’re a bit late off the starting blocks with our highly-anticipated annual Whingie Awards.

Frankly we believed we might not need to bother. The world was going to end. Andrew had packed his onesie and headed off to Bugarach. Phil was left sitting around in his meggins self-medicating in preparation musing which shows would be the theatrical cockroaches that might survive the impending apocalypse.

The Mousetrap obviously, Phantom and The Woman in Black no doubt, though perhaps Viva Forever! should hunker in a bunker and pray.

Of course it wasn’t the end after all. The world continues and we must carry on going to the theatre. It’s a bit of a let down. But as we toast the new and possibly unlucky New Year of 2013 we’ve had our hands down the back of the theatrical sofa digging for the occasional treasure, copious amounts of fluff and the occasional best-forgotten unmentionable.

Review – Long Day’s Journey into Night, Apollo Theatre

“I don’t feel so bad about my drinking now,” chirped Andrew as he breezed out of the Apollo Theatre after Long Day’s Journey into Night and headed into a local hostelry feeling utterly reborn as a paragon of self-restraint.

History shall record that Eugene O’Neil’s life and works were not in vain then. His famously long autobiographical drama about a dysfunctional family (which he didn’t want published until 25 years after his death and never, ever performed) has served at least one useful purpose.