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 – Posh, Duke of York’s Theatre

Poshness is relative.

Since Victoria Beckham usefully redefined the word posh for us, what’s posh and what is not is a little random these days. Phil’s poshness is merely aspirational. He asks for a ‘Portillo’ when he has his hair cut, which is then teased on his bonce with limited success. As his bouffant gets bouffier it’s not quite up to the required heady height yet. Let’s be kind and call it a work in progress, a bit like Laura Wade‘s play Posh.

Andrew saw it when it premiered at the Royal Court 2 years ago. Phil didn’t for reasons he cannot remember. It’s now in the West End with some recasting and rewriting (references to the coalition, the Greek economy and the summer riots). Phil is forced to concur with pretty much everything Andrew said about it then.

Review – Posh, Royal Court

Just a quickie or we’ll never catch up: Laura Wade’s Posh at the Royal Court is about a group of implausibly over-privileged Oxford students with an implausibly universal disdain for poor people. They are all members of The Riot Club, an exclusive dining club which habitually destroys dining rooms but pays for the damage so that’s OK.

Posh has had lots of coverage because The Riot Club is based on the notorious Bullingdon Club whose alumni include David Cameron, George Osborne and, umm, according to Wikipedia, Daily Telegraph theatre critic Charles Spencer, a charge which sadly he refutes.

That everyone in this milieux should be so utterly horrid as portrayed here seems as implausible as Wade’s conclusion which is that the Hooray Henry who goes too far and kicks a publican half to death will be seen by the Tory party machine to be just the sort of chap they are looking for once they have got him off the charges and all the nonsense dies down.

Yet in spite of all this and in spite of the fact that much of the first act deals only with the club’s rules, traditions and prospective leadership, the combination of sparkling dialogue, a superbly cast, top-drawer ensemble (including WEW-approved David Dawson and Henry Hadden Paton) playing with utter conviction and fine direction from Lyndsey Turner transforms this slightly rickety play transformed into a theatrical delight.

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