Andrew is on sabbatical but Phil is soldiering on to help you decide between the Merlot and the Marlowe and generally putting London's West End theatre to rights
For those kind folk (that should probably read as singular rather than plural) who have been interested enough to ask where Phil’s been, here lies the answer. Hip replacement don’t you know, beating Patti LuPone to the crutches by a matter of weeks. He feels Patti’s pain. And he’s just beginning to dip the toe on the end of his newly bionic leg back into the world of theatre that doesn’t come with a surgeon and anaesthetist. Read the rest of this entry »
The signs were so enormously encouraging.
A new (very) British musical with a crack team behind it. Music by James Bond film composer David Arnold, lyrics by Richard Thomas (Jerry Springer: the Opera), a book by Richard Bean (One Man, Two Governors) and helmed by Rupert Goold, AD at the Almeida who also delivered in spades (and axes) with the musical version of American Psycho.
On the downside Made in Dagenham is yet another film-to-stage adaptation. Read the rest of this entry »
“OZZY’S SNAKE ATE MY PUSSY” screams a tabloid headline on stage as you take your seat in the Lyttleton Theatre, pretty much setting the tone for the almost three hours of Richard Bean‘s new comedy Great Britain, about hacking scandals, the press and how it links to politics and police.
The production was unveiled at the eleventh hour once the phone hacking trials were concluded and opened to the critics without previews. You could say the press verdicts had to wait for the verdicts on the press. Read the rest of this entry »
In which James Corden appears to redeem himself with aplomb and the Whingers laugh at a Richard Bean comedy – and quite a lot.
Due to an administrative error the Whingers had a couple of spare tickets for Tuesday night’s first preview of One Man, Two Guvnors at the National Theatre – Richard Bean’s rewriting of Carlo Goldoni’s 1743 quasi -commedia dell’arte Arlecchino servitore di due padroni (as we like to call it) aka The Servant of Two Masters.
An appeal on Facebook to all 11 of the Whingers’ friends produced a flurry of messages citing the usual implausibly high incidences of hair-washing and sick dogs. But in between those messsages were a high number of declined invitations seemingly based an antipathy to James Corden.
It seems that some time since his History Boys/Gavin & Stacey days and yesterday, Mister Corden (channelling Harry Worth on the poster) seems to have rubbed some people up the wrong way.
But here, once more directed (or reined in) by Mister Nicholas Hytner, Mister Corden turns in a hardworking, confident – yet not cocky – and rather likeable performance. Read the rest of this entry »
[SPOILERS ALL THE WAY] Read the rest of this entry »
I really can’t bring myself to write very much about this dull, pointless adaptation of David Mamet‘s 1987 film about con artists. Read the rest of this entry »
Golly gosh. Can it really be a full year since the Whingers’ minds were not as one. Last September two consecutive shows (Talent and Ben Hur Live!) created a gulf wider than the one a freshly-banged-up popster created in Hampstead’s Snappy Snaps.
Andrew was adamant, “I’d sooner sit through Passion again.” Read the rest of this entry »
Fu**ing Frogs!!!
..
Fu**ing Micks!!!
…
Fu**ing Whingers!!!
Mmmm, wasn’t fu**ing funny the first time, was it?
Did the repetition help make it funnier?
Well, if it did you might have died laughing by the end of England People Very Nice at the National Theatre on Tuesday evening. Read the rest of this entry »
A West End Whinger 