Posts Tagged ‘Mark Rylance’
Tuesday 17 September 2013
Gosh, how unwhingerish. Two Shakespeares in one week and on consecutive days no less.
A rare group outing and appropriately there was much ado about Much Ado About Nothing too. People were dropping out like all over the place. There were more withdrawals than a Roman orgy. 50% of the group fell by the wayside to be replaced by members on the waiting list. One person dropped out, dropped back in, then irritatingly dropped out again. Andrew never dropped in in the first place. Do we know a lot of people who possess the gift of foresight ? Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in West End Whingers | 25 Comments »
Tags: entertainment, James Earl Jones, London, Mark Rylance, Much Ado About Nothing, Old Vic, Peter Wight, play, review, theatre, Tim Barlow, Ultz, Vanessa Redgrave, west end, William Shakespeare
Wednesday 10 October 2012
In the general scheme of things it shouldn’t seem that extraordinary that this was Phil’s first trip to The Globe, after all Andrew is still able to boast that his Les Misérables hymen remains chastely intact and probably always will be.
But an all-male chicks-with-dicks Twelfth Night with the starry combo of Mark Rylance and Stephen Fry proved too tempting a theatrical carrot in the slightly theme park-ish Globe. And there was added intrigue; Rylance was reprising his Olivia of 10 years ago while Fry was thesping on a stage again for the first time since he famously absconded from Cell Mates. All that and TN (with Richard III) will transfer for a run in the West End courtesy of Dame Sonia Friedman. A Globe first surely? Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in West End Whingers | 2 Comments »
Tags: entertainment, Johnny Flynn, London, Mark Rylance, Paul Chahidi, Peter Hamilton Dyer, play, review, Roger Lloyd Pack, Samuel Barnett, Stephen Fry, The Globe Theatre, theatre, Tim Carroll, Twelfth Night, west end, William Shakespeare
Thursday 8 July 2010
“The theatrical event of the year” is a phrase that’s rather bandied about willy-nilly these days.
Benedict Nightingale’s quote still lurks mockingly on the publicity for Paint Never Dries. Punters might be forgiven for thinking that it signalled a volte-face in Nightingale’s opinion after his less than flattering 2 star review. It didn’t. The quote actually originates from something he wrote long before he saw it.
But the Whingers can truthfully say that for them La Bête really does fall into the category of one of their most eagerly anticipated theatrical excursions of the year, despite it being written in verse.
Yes verse! You would think that in a post-Fram, post-Misanthrope world, people would have stopped putting on verse plays and moreover that the Whingers would have stopped going to them.
Have their heads been turned by dipping their poetic toes into the Clerihewcular cosmos? Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in West End Whingers | 35 Comments »
Tags: comedy, Comedy Theatre, David Hirson, David Hyde Pierce, entertainment, Joanna Lumley, La Bête, London, Mark Rylance, Matthew Warchus, play, review, theatre, west end
Thursday 11 February 2010
Yes, we know what you’re thinking.
What are you two doing hob-nobbing like this? Are the Whingers selling out? But before you click onto other sites let us modestly remind you that we were the ones who hailed Jerusalem and Mark Rylance’s performance before the “legit” critics jumped onto the Whingers’ rickety old band wagon (it is well known that they slavishly follow the Whingers’ opinions and have no capacity for independent thought apart from Michael Billington who thinks Jerusalem and Really Old Like Forty Five are both four star experiences which just goes to show the perils of independent thought).
Anyway, we went. Read the rest of this entry »
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Tags: Café de Paris, Jerusalem, Jez Butterworth, Mackenzie Crook, Mark Rylance, Sonia Friedman
Thursday 28 January 2010
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 »
Posted in West End Whingers | 1 Comment »
Tags: Alia Bano, Arthrus Smith, Benedict Nightingale, Blanche Marvin, Charles Spencer, Christopher Oram, Claire Allfree, Critics Circle Theatre Awards 2010, Donmar Warehouse, Dvid Benedict, Jerusalem, Jez Butterworth, Jude Law, London, Lyric Hammersmith, Mark Rylance, Mark Shenton, Michael Grandage, Rachel Weisz, Royal Court, Rupert Goold, Sonia Friedman, Spring Awakening, theatre, Tim Walker, Tom Sturridge, 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 7 October 2009
Phil is taking to religion, believing there could possibly be a God.
Even stranger, Phil has another new perspective on the universe: that Andrew is a star twinkling brighter than any luminary treading the West End stage. Yes, it’s too much to take in, won’t last very long and you can be certain Andrew will milk this one.
The reason for this curious state of mind? Andrew rang Phil on Tuesday morning sounding as if something very, very terrible had happened. Was Too Close To The Sun being revived? No. Andrew was mumbling in a quite unnecessarily apologetic tone, “It turns out I didn’t book the tickets for the interminably long and almost universally derided pig’s ear that is Mother Courage at the National Theatre after all.”
Having thought themselves doomed to seeing at least the first act that evening, the effect was quite astonishing. Phew! Phil’s mood lifted instantly. His metaphorical sun came out as he experienced more relief than a Swedish massage parlour. It turned out that both Whingers had been dreading it. Phil wondered why he’d agreed in the first place and Andrew had even been trying to give the (non existent) tickets away. Unsurprisingly there were no takers.
Hence they ended up at the Duchess Theatre watching Endgame instead. But to replace an evening’s Brecht with an evening’s Beckett is surely an Olympian Whingerian jump out of the frying pan and into the proverbial? Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in West End Whingers | 5 Comments »
Tags: Duchess Theatre, Endgame, entertainment, London, Mark Rylance, Miriam Margolyes, Paul Anderson, review, Samuel Beckett, Simon McBurney, theatre, Tim Hatley, Tom Hickey, west end
Wednesday 15 July 2009
Six hours of theatre? Three intervals? Have the Whingers lost the plot, or just watched so much theatre they can’t keep up with it?
OK so we’re conflating a little having sat through a matinée of Carrie’s War before heading trepidatiously to The Royal Court to see the epic Jerusalem.
We had been tipped off by some Good Samaritans beforehand that Jez Butterworth‘s play comes in at a staggering 3 hours 20 minutes with two intervals. Christ! We could have flown to the holy city in less time. To be honest the runes were not looking auspicious and the Whingers were on their knees praying to the God of theatre (why has he foresaken us?) to intervene with some technical problem which would necessitate the whole thing being called off and refunds given. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in West End Whingers | 31 Comments »
Tags: Alan David, BBC Points West, entertainment, Ian Rickson, Jerusalem, Jez Butterworth, London, Mackenzie Crook, Mark Rylance, NHS Direct, review, Royal Court, Tamiflu, theatre, Tom Brooke, Wiltshire