Review – Funny Girl, Menier Chocolate Factory

Yes, we were the luckiest people in the world. We got tickets!

This was the Menier‘s fastest-selling production (entire run sold out in a few hours) and an announcement of a transfer to the West End well before Funny Girl – the story of Broadway star Fanny Brice – had even started previews. People who need tickets needn’t panic.

Andrew was fastest finger first and nabbed some for the last preview (yes, we are a bit behind). So expectations were absurdly high. Would we be drooling over Sheridan Smith‘s Fanny?

Review – Green Day’s American Idiot

Like Dreamboats and Petticoats, American Idiot is based on a titular album but with a lot more foot-stamping and head-banging.

English Idiot

The Whingers have had a funny old day.

Such is the paucity of newsworthy stuff going on around the Broadway, the Whingers found themselves invited to appear with critic Mark Shenton on the PBS TV show Theater (sic) Talk hosted by the New York Post’s acerbic columnist Michael Riedel (rhymes with needle it turns out) and the show’s producer Susan Haskins.

Review – Spring Awakening, Lyric Hammersmith

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.