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
One of the biggest surprises produced by the supposed horror shocker Ghost Stories has been the volume and ferocity of the vilification expressed by disappointed punters in the comments section.
The gist of the complaints is that people feel cheated. Ghost Stories (“Just keep telling yourself it’s only a show”) makes promises it just can’t keep.
Anyway, nothing has attracted such universal derision since Andrew last stepped out in a new summer shirt. Read the rest of this entry »
Picture it. Not many years from now. Andrew and Phil have achieved their long repressed dream to be movers and shakers in the world of theatre.
After decades of plotting and scheming they have finally made it right to the very top of the Dilton Marsh Players, one of west Wiltshire’s top six semi-rural amateur dramatics association, and they are determined to make their mark.
Phil makes his inaugural speech as President in which he scolds the members for the conservativeness of their repertoire. Read the rest of this entry »
[SPOILERS ALL THE WAY] Read the rest of this entry »
Take three highly regarded playwrights. One play. A live poodle (subject to availability, it’s different dogs on different nights), a penny-farthing, scones and cream noshing and on-stage washing that goes way beyond the hair. Even Phil wasn’t around to see Mary Martin wash that man right out of her hair and he happily marked up yet another first: Naked Man Is Flannelled Down In Tin Bath By His Mother. Read the rest of this entry »
The extreme warnings* aboout Ghost Stories at the Lyric Hammersmith were such that Phil decided to go it alone. Aware that Andrew is of a very nervous disposition, the prospect of him jumping into Phil’s lap were enough to cause him moments of “extreme shock and tension”.
The truth is that the Whingers had tickets for Tuesday’s performance but Phil had to pull out due to a much more important engagement than theatre, but he slipped into the Saturday matinée leaving others to soothe Andrew’s nerves.
It would take quite a lot to scare the Phil in a theatre. The prospect of seeing the first act of Gone With the Wind The Musical again might, or being locked in the Cottesloe auditorium overnight, or having to endure the second act of Really Old, Like Forty Five. Or if Richard Jones was to be let loose on a classic musical again, that might send shudders down Phil’s spine. Read the rest of this entry »
Well, the fire door had been carelessly left open so like model citizens we went in and pulled it firmly shut behind us and then it turned out we were in the Price of Wales Theatre and there was free drink and Rachel Weisz and Jude Law were and so we thought, what the hell, and stayed for The Critics’ Circle Theatre Awards 2009.
Of course, it’s pretty much the definition of “yesterday’s news”* (well, you try filing a blog post when they’ve been topping up your wine glass not stop for for three hours and to be fair Andrew was tweeting it live) and so you know that Weisz and Law were among the winners. We sort of guessed that when we saw them there. Read the rest of this entry »
‘Eres a funny thing…
Have you heard the one about the two old bloggers who dragged themselves over to the Lyric Hammersmith to see a revival of Comedians, with the heaviest of hearts having read Trevor Griffiths‘ play has a running time of 3 hours?
And they didn’t look at their watches once. Read the rest of this entry »
Harmony.
All’s right with the world again.
After disagreements over their last two sorties, Talent and Ben Hur Live, the Whinger’s schism has – for the moment – healed. Amelioration was achieved by a theatrical band-aid applied last night at the Lyric Hammersmith: the far from harmonious Punk Rock.
Who said school days are the happiest of your life? Presumably not playwright Simon Stephens. Yes, that’s him, the same writer who had the Whingers in such complete unison with his last effort Harper Regan that they left at the interval in synchronised steps.
But there was to be no scurrying off during the interval of Punk Rock. With the attention-challenged in mind Mr Stephens cunningly has his latest effort whistled through in a very Whinger-friendly 1 hour 50 minutes with no break.
A good start, but it wasn’t the only thing to have the Whingers nodding in approval. Read the rest of this entry »
When was the last time you fondled the pearl of your distant dreams? Thought so.
Anyway….
How typically perverse of the Whingers to go to see Spring Awakening on the very day that the rest of London was having a Winter Awakening.
Andrew spent Monday eagerly tracking the West End theatre cancellations and praying for the Lyric Hammersmith to make the announcement which would get him off the hook.
The Stage tantalisingly reported cancellations of Mamma Mia!, Jersey Boys, Les Miserables, Oliver!, Avenue Q, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Complicit, Grease, Carousel, Be Near Me, Hairspray, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Wicked, Sunset Boulevard, The Sound of Music, Billy Elliot – The Musical, Dirty Dancing – The Classic Story On Stage, Gethsemane, On The Waterfront, The Phantom Of The Opera, Private Lives, Twelfth Night, Stomp, The Mousetrap and We Will Rock You.*
The Guardian clarified that Gethsemane would be cancelled “because a cast member is stuck in Brighton and there are no understudies for Cottesloe productions”.
But it was very all exciting: by early afternoon the Lyric was telling phone callers that the cast and crew were “struggling to get in” but they didn’t know if enough would get in for the performance to go ahead. Andrew asked the theatre to assure the cast and crew not to go to any trouble on his account. After all, this was another one of Phil’s bright ideas. Read the rest of this entry »
A West End Whinger 