Andrew is on sabbatical but Phil is soldiering on to help you decide between the Merlot and the Marlowe and generally putting London's West End theatre to rights
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. Read the rest of this entry »
What’s Shakespeare in Love about then?
Well, it’s about 3 hours.
We’ve probably used that ‘gag’ before, but since the West End is hooked on recycling movies and musical back catalogues we feel moved to join in with some gentle regurgitation too.
SIL, should you not know, was a popular and reasonably entertaining film that inexplicably went on to win 7 Academy Awards (you remember, Dame Judi won the Best Supporting Actress statuette for her 8 minutes of screen time as Queen E 1) and is delivered extravagantly to the Noel Coward in both production values and running time. The only brevity here comes in the form of a ceruse-faced Anna Carteret who drifts around oozing regality in the Dame J role in similarly and frustratingly brief appearances. Read the rest of this entry »
The Whingers are très farouche when it comes to their private lives.
In Andrew’s case this is because he has no life to speak of.
In Phil’s case it’s because he lives in a complete fantasy world.
Yet although their lives are so dramatically different it is often only a stalls seat armrest that separates them (unless – as is often the case – they are reduced to sitting in the cheap seats in the front few rows of the Olivier or Lyttelton theatres where armrests are just a dream).
Yet watching Amanda and Elyot in Noël Peirce Coward‘s Private Lives constantly putting each other down and bickering in the most childish manner resonated for some reason. Read the rest of this entry »
A West End Whinger 