Review – The Turn of the Screw, Almeida Theatre

Those with no interest in Gothic theatrical hokum which seeks to titillate audiences and make them jump in their seats should look away now.

And those of a more nervous disposition might think about placing a plastic bag between their derrière and velveteen Almeida theatre bench.

This is the turn of Rebecca Lenkiewicz* at Henry James‘ ghost story; the famous novella which has inspired a slew of TV, opera and film versions and comes with no small amount of pedigree and a degree of baggage. Many will already know that The Turn of the Screw is not – as the title might suggest to the uninitiated – set in a prison wing’s shower block.

In which the Whingers fess up to their whereabouts on Sunday

Well, it’s a bit embarrassing really. But we were on the fringe. In Hackney. Again.

And we’d have got away with it too if it weren’t for those pesky playwrights Stephen Sharkey and Dr David Eldridge who were both around to witness the Whingers swan in for the 1pm (!) performance of three short plays at the Arcola Theatre.

This was part of the East festival and featured:

• Purgatory by Steven Berkoff
• Flowers In Her Hair by Rebecca Lenkiewicz
• The List by Dr David Eldridge

The whole thing was over in about an hour, each being short enough that the Whingers’ ever decreasing attention spans could cope.

Review – Her Naked Skin, National Theatre

There really are some rather spooky coincidences connecting the Whingers to the National’s new lesbian prison drama set against the backdrop of the fight for votes for women in Edwardian England.

Phil – who is very emancipated – feels a particular affinity with the movement: his grandmother was a suffragette; his uncle was governor of Strangeways Prison where suffragette Derby Day martyr Emily Wilding Davison was detained; Phil himself was hooked on the seventies suffragette TV drama Shoulder to Shoulder; and in the days when he cycled (before Dave and Boris made it unfashionable) he used to chain his bike to railings.

And Andrew is a Lesbian. Well, he isn’t actually one at the moment, but he hopes one day to become part of the Lesbian community once he has saved up enough to buy the little Greek hideaway he’s always hankered after.