Review – Nation by Terry Pratchett via Mark Ravenhill, National Theatre

It was all very strange. There the Whingers were at a preview of Mark Ravenhill‘s adaptation of Terry Pratchett‘s Nation at the National Theatre last night when who should turn up? Why, nobody they knew! Not only on the level of the individual but – largely – in a generic sense too.

Yes, there was a sprinkling of the National Theatre grey haired faithfuls but there were also conspicuous numbers of people negotiating the complexities of allocated seating seemingly for the first time.  And not a few youthful  people – teenagers, as they used to be called. Hundreds of them in fact.

It was all very strange.*

Review – Terror 2009, Southwark Playhouse

There are quite a few things that really terrify the Whingers.

Phil is famously scared of heights, latterly and powerfully illustrated in Petra, Jordan (see illustration to the right) where he had to be physically prised off a rock on a particularly vertiginous ledge by not only a Jordanian guide but by two bemused Bedouin women and a very discombobulated Andrew.

But Andrew too can readily succumb to the jitters, being prone to an attack of the vapours when ever anyone says “approximate running time”, “unreserved seating”, “theatre-in-the-round”, “Pinter revival” or “last orders”.

So given the everyday anxieties of life as a Whinger, stories of theatregoers running from the theatre during performances of Terror 2009, Theatre of Horror and Grand Guignol at the Southwark Playhouse were of relatively little concern.

Review – Bette Bourne and Mark Ravenhill: A Life in Three Acts, Soho Theatre

Since the unexpected but most welcome song dedicated* to them in the Menier’s Forbidden Broadway, the Whingers have become impossibly grand. They’ve set their sights even higher and expect to see themselves portrayed on stage ere long.

But who would play them? Cross-gender casting wouldn’t bother them at all and Phil would be more than happy to see the wonderful Fenella Fielding tackling his sophisticated airs.

But who could possibly do justice to Andrew? Who could best encapsulate his physical attributes? Miriam Margolyes? Bonnie Langford? Jeanette Krankie?

Review – Over There by Mark Ravenhill, Royal Court

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”.