Posts Tagged ‘Luke Treadaway’
Friday 3 March 2017
Give Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? an award now (correct envelope please). Audiences have been banned from eating in the auditorium. The West End might be coming to its senses at last. Hurrah!
It seems like yesterday, although it is 11 years, since we saw Edward Albee‘s 1962 Tony Award-winning play (Best play, actor and actress) on the Shaftesbury Avenue with Kathleen Turner being both brilliantly hilarious and pathetic as the vitriol-and-booze-fueled, husband-baiting Martha. It’s one of the most perfect pieces of casting Phil’s ever witnessed. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in West End Whingers | 4 Comments »
Tags: Conleth Hill, Edward Albee, entertainment, Harold Pinter Theatre, Imelda Staunton, Imogen Poots, James Macdonald, London, Luke Treadaway, Melinda Dillon, play, review, Sandy Dennis, theatre, west end, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Monday 31 December 2012
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. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in West End Whingers | 13 Comments »
Tags: Alan Bennett, Alex Lawther, Anastasia Hille, Anna Friel, Anthony Andrews, Billie Piper, Bingo, Bully Boy, Bunny Christie, Cillian Murphy, Constellations, Damian Humbley, Damned by Despair, Debbie Kurrup, Detroit, entertainment, I Dreamed a Dream, Ian Kelly, Imelda Staunton, Jonjo O'Neill, Josefina Gabrielle, Joshua McGuire, Joshua Miles, Katherine Kingsley, Kyle Soller, London, Long Day's journey into Night, Love, Love Love., Luke Treadaway, Mark Umbers, Merrily We Roll Along, Michael Ball, Michael Longhurst, Mike Bartlett, Miriam Buether, Misterman, Mr Foote's Other Leg, musical, Nicholas Farrell, Nick Payne, Our Boys, Paul Chahidi, People, play, Posh, Privates on Parade, Rafe Spall, Rupert Goold, Sally Hawkins, Scarlett Strallen, Simon Russell Beale, Singin' in the Rain, South Downs / The Browning Version, Susan Boyle, Sweeney Todd, The Bodyguard, The Cottesloe, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, The Effect, The House of Bernarda Alba, The Lion in Winter, The Magistrate, theatre, Tom Scutt, Top Hat, Trevor White, Twelfth Night, Uncle Vanya, Viva Forever, west end, Whingie Awards
Thursday 2 August 2012
You wouldn’t, of course. But in the unlikely chance you should ever pause to wonder how Phil behaves in a train toilet* then hasten yourself along to see the The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.
This is not intended to put you off booking a ticket for Simon Stephens‘ adaptation of Mark Haddon‘s novel about Christopher (Luke Treadaway) a 15-year-old mathematics wiz occupying a position somewhere on the autism/aspergers spectrum.
Christopher discovers his neighbour’s dog dead (Ken Dodd’s dog died. Did he? No, Doddy), impaled by a garden fork. Initially under suspicion himself, his enthusiasm for Sherlock Holmes inspires him to embark on his own investigation but he uncovers more than he bargains for.
Andrew had read the book and liked it very much. Phil had heard of it. But it really shouldn’t have worked for the Whingers. TCIOTDITNT is presented with the unfortunate double handicap of: 1. in-the-round staging and 2. at the Cottesloe, eek. Yet, and it sticks in our throats to say, it’s seems the ideal location and the one occasion where a perch in one of the theatre’s upper levels affords a terrific overview of the frequently stunning visuals. The graph-paper stage by the prolific Bunny Christie (need we say more?), lighting by Paule Constable and video design by Finn Ross all but threaten to steal the show. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in West End Whingers | 10 Comments »
Tags: Bunny Christie, entertainment, Finn Ross, London, Luke Treadaway, Marianne Elliott, Mark Haddon, National Theatre, Paul Ritter, Paule Constable, play, review, Simon Stephens, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, theatre, Una Stubbs, west end
Tuesday 29 December 2009
With another year rapidly drawing to a close it is time for the Whingers to reflect and indulge themselves in a little more navel gazing – not our own navels, as that would be even duller than usual for you – but the innies and outies of the sometimes fluffy navels of London’s artistic directors, producers, players and theatres and award The Whingies to the most outstanding ones.
But first our own navels: 2009 has been a year of heady excitement for the Whingers. It was a year that saw them inadvertently whip up controversy and heated debate again and again and again.
It was also a year in which artistic differences reared their ugly heads threatening the very fabric of the West End Whingers, a tear in the polyester bed-sheet of their existence so delicate that a clumsily clipped toenail might have been all it took to rent it from headboard to toe straight down the middle.
The Whingers were courted by the British Broadcasting Company, libelled as “muckrakers” in the National Press, lampooned in song and Phil had his pithiest aphorism to date quoted (yet mainly without attribution) by national critics. There was an evening of confusion in which Phil was mistaken for Michael Grandage and the Whingers finally received an award for their artistic endeavours.
And we finally got the opportunity to choose between the Merlot and the Marlowe.
So, without further do, here are the results of the Kentish Town and Vauxhall juries: Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in West End Whingers | 11 Comments »
Tags: Andrew Scott, Annie Get Your Gun, awards, Cock, Comedians, Complicit, David Dawson, Derren Brown's Enigma, England People Very Nice, Enjoy, Entertaining Mr Sloane, entertainment, Finbar Lynch, Forbidden Broadway, fringe, Hamlet, Hello Dolly!, Imelda Staunton, James Macdonald, Jerusalem, Jez Butterworth, Jude Law, London, Luke Treadaway, Madame de Sade, Mark Rylance, Mark Umbers, Menier Chocolate Factory, Michael Grandage, Mike Bartlett, musical, Naked Boys Singing, National Theatre, off-West End, Old Vic, On the Waterfront, Over There, Priscilla Queen of the Desert, Public Property, Punk Rock, review, Robert Daws, Royal Court, Simon Paisley Day, Spring Awakening, Sweet Charity, The Fastest Clock in the Universe, theatre, Three Days of Rain, Tom Sturridge, Tony Sheldon, Too Close To The Sun, Waiting for Godot, west end
Wednesday 11 March 2009
One thing’s for sure: when the Whingers eventually get around to putting their money where their humongous mouths are and writing their own play, it will have a snappy title.
They’ve already got a swathe of clever, witty names for their magnum opus; in fact they were tossing a few around only the other day. But since these pages are read by well-known and budding playwrights desperately seeking displacement activity and filling in the empty hours generously donated to them in the name of writer’s block, we are unable to risk sharing them with you here.
The only thing stopping us is that we just don’t have a theme, a plot or even an idea. Just some titles.
Mark Ravenhill is no stranger to memorable and arresting titles. In fact, wasn’t his career launched on the controversy of Shopping and F**king – the most Christian Bale of all play titles – before everyone got controversial and started inserting asterisks in their headings?.
Anyway, on this occasion he has disappointingly come up with one of those really anodyne hard-to-remember, hard-to-Google titles: Over There. Most people – like the Whingers – seem to be referring to it as “that play with the twins in” or simply “the twins play”. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in West End Whingers | 15 Comments »
Tags: entertainment, Harry Treadaway, Johannes Schütz, London, Luke Treadaway, Mark Ravenhill, Over There, Ramin Gray, review, Royal Court, theatre, west end