Review – Wild, Hampstead Theatre

Mike Bartlett‘s King Charles III and his telly thingy Doctor Foster amused us so much we’d almost forgotten just how much we also loved his Cock.

Now, in Wild, he concentrates on whistleblower Edward Snowden, who leaked information of US mass surveillance programmes. He’s portrayed here as Andrew (Jack Farthing doing not unreasonable doppelgänger work) who we encounter awaiting an uncertain future holed up in a characterless Moscow hotel room (design Miriam Buether) where he’s visited by two enigmatic people, a man and a woman both claiming to be called “George”. Can he trust them? Are they here to help him, kill him, or just tease the hell out of him?

Review – King Charles III, Almeida Theatre

Naughty Mike Bartlett.

This of course the same Mike Bartlett who once presented us with his Cock. Naturally we had a lot of fun with that title at the time and like childish schoolboys will always whip it out to play around with when the opportunity arises.

But it seems Bartlett is having even more fun with his “future history play”, King Charles III.

His playwriting credits are going to have to be very carefully organised in the future to avoid them being listed as Love, Love Love, King Charles III, Cock.

The 2012 Whingie Awards – the very worst and the not so bad

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.

Review – Chariots of Fire, Gielgud Theatre

A bit slow off the starting blocks with this one.

Anyway, a tip: don’t ask the ushers at Chariots of Fire if Mr Bean is appearing. At the first post-opening ceremony performance Phil checked but they had apparently been asked several times already.

Failing to obtain tickets for any Olympic events, this seemed the nearest alternative to try and get into the spirit of the games and Phil was intrigued: he’d been having a drink outside a hostelry near the Gielgud Theatre a few days earlier when a complete stranger came up and congratulated him on his performance in COF. Who could she mean? Most of the cast weren’t even born when that strangely over-awarded 1981 film came out which left a few of the more senior cast members. So Nicholas Grace or Simon Williams perhaps? Bizarre.

This West End transfer from the Hampstead Theatre was announced before it even opened there; so in some ways swifter than Mark Cavendish Lizzie Armitstead Wiggo.

Review – Love, Love, Love, Royal Court

How to put this delicately?

The Whingers occasionally wonder who will wear the mantles of our great acting dames when the more senior ones exchange waiting in the wings for wearing them.

So there was almost spontaneous combustion during Love, Love, Love when the Whingers simultaneously realised they had identified one.

Review – 13, National Theatre

It’s a brave man who calls his play 13.

The opportunities for easy gags (who us?) are almost irresistible.

But then this is the Mike Bartlett who bravely presented his Cock at the Royal Court two years ago which led to much unseemly schoolboy giggling from the back of the Whingers’ unruly class.

Imagine if he ever writes a play called Inch. We can only imagine the programme compilers having great fun debating the order of his writing credits.

So, inspired to defy superstition, the Whingers will present 13 reasons why you may (or may not) wish to fondle a rabbit’s foot in your pocket and visit the National Theatre.

Review – Earthquakes in London, National Theatre

Andrew’s excitement was palpable. “They’ve turned it into a bar!” he trilled as he took his seat in the auditorium. “They’ve finally found a use for the Cottesloe!”.

And indeed it seemed at first glance that they had. Designer Miriam Buether has transformed the National Theatre‘s ghastly Cottesloe space almost beyond recognition. How astute and splendidly cunning of her to turn it into the place in which the Whingers would feel most at home.

A long, orange S-shaped bar-cum-stage snakes around the groundlings, some of whom are perched on natty red bar stools while others stand (and later slump) behind them in holding pens.

Less limelight-hugging patrons such as the Whingers sit in galleries surveying the proceedings from above.

The Whingers Awards 2009 – the very worst and the not so bad

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:

Review – Cock, Royal Court

Things weren’t looking good as the Whingers entered the Royal Court‘s upstairs auditorium. The Court was very much in officiousness overdrive up there.

It’s all so very, very strict. Greeted by a humourless usher who makes an airport security official look like Pollyanna, instructions come thick and fast: you may take one small bag in if you rest it on your lap; “double check your phone is off” (a good thing, granted); only bottled water is allowed. Yes water! No wine, how on earth were the Whingers going to last one and three quarter hours without sustenance?

Yes, there are many hoops to be jumped through if you wish to see Mike Bartlett‘s Cock.