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 – The Trial, Young Vic

Oh for a fondue set and a cuddly toy…

And on the conveyor belt tonight; a television set, a gramophone, a lifetime’s supply of yellow stationery, an animal print duvet, 3 ceramic Alsatian dog ornaments with matching standard lamp, a John Pasche/Rolling Stones lampshade, a set of photographs of celebrity criminals, 3 toilets, and a generously busy cast of 17 actors including Rory Kinnear, Siân Thomas, Sarah Crowden, Kate O’Flynn and the lovely Will from W1A.

For this is Franz Kafka‘s The Trial reinvented by Nick Gill (adapting) and Richard Jones (directing) as The Generation Game with a little bit of Through the Keyhole thrown in for good measure.

Review – Bend It Like Beckham, Phoenix Theatre

Two football-themed shows in two days, this despite Phil’s relationship to football being not unlike Andrew’s to Pinter (he’s dabbled with it now and again but generally eschews it).

Phil can raise a modicum of interest, once every four years, though he’ll be boycotting watching the next two World Cups if the host nations aren’t changed.

And if you’re wondering where the review of the other one – Patrick Marber’s The Red Lion – is, forget it. Phil and Andrew took a dive at the interval. It was so slow and uneventful he can only be bothered to mention that it begins with a rather protracted scene of a man ironing football shirts when he really should have been pressing the tablecloth from The Beaux Stratagem in the Olivier theatre next door. So you’ll have to make do with Andrew’s summary, “I can’t believe this was from the man who wrote Dealer’s Choice. Was it something he had lying around in the back of a drawer?”.

With football dominating the headlines for the last few weeks both shows have rather timely openings.

Anyhoo, if like Phil, you’re not overly familiar with footie here’s a glossary of terms to help you along.

Review – Sunny Afternoon, Hampstead Theatre

” It’s not about the words. It’s about the atmosphere” says Ray Davies (John Dagleish) towards the end of the new Kinks’ musical. How apt.

By the finale, that atmosphere was something akin to a party. A party of people jiggling around (but not like their dads at discos – for this audience was largely too elderly to have parents still alive), in the form of a stage-managed standing dancing ovation. Sunny Afternoon is looking to the West End. Not very rock and roll. It ends up wanting to be Mamma Mia.

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.