Review – Guys and Dolls, Phoenix Theatre

Third in a row of our catching-up-on-shows-we’ve-missed. A sort of theatrical mopping round the surrounds if you please.

So, the seemingly indestructible Guys and Dolls. We didn’t get down to Chichester to see it and well, frankly, it was way too expensive at the Savoy but somehow Phil found a way to the Phoenix.

And if you’ve seen the poster or flyer (which boasts 6 Olivier Awards nominations, though strictly speaking it should be 3 nominations for the show as it now appears) for the Phoenix Theatre you’d be forgiven for thinking that it’s the same cast who played the Savoy as their pictures are still on the publicity material. Three of the four leads were nominated, but they’ve all left the show, leaving the one who wasn’t, Siubhan Harrison (shame, we liked her), to carry on. Gavin Spokes, with an Olivier nod for his Nicely Nicely Johnson still appears, but we will return to him later.

Review – Filumena, Almeida theatre

“Tell me why we’re seeing this?” Andrew had grilled Phil with such alarming regularity that if he’d been looking into a mirror The Candyman would probably have appeared.

“Because Samantha Spiro is in it and I saw it years ago and really enjoyed it” Phil repeated with increasing impatience.

Of course Phil’s ‘years ago’ wasn’t Judi Dench’s Filumena, which was a mere 14 years ago, but the Franco Zeffirelli production from so long ago that Patricia Hayes was playing the maid and Joan Plowright’s youthful sons included Trevor Eve and Larry Lamb.

Those were the days when Phil would sit in the gallery of the Theatre Royal Brighton and see everything and – more peculiarly – enjoy almost everything. How times have changed.

Review – Hello, Dolly! at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre

With the predicted barbecue summer on and off faster than a Hemingway musical it looked as if the Whingers’ 2009 visit to Regent’s Park might end up as a reprise of last year’s somewhat waterlogged outing.

But with the sudden return of good weather over the weekend the Whingers had been optimistically talking again of sizzling their sausages. It seemed that the plastic ponchos which stood them in such good stead at last year’s delightful Gigi might remain packed away and that they would be able to appreciate Jerry Herman‘s Hello, Dolly! by putting on their sunny day clothes.

But Andrew – thrilled by the meticulous punctuation of the title – had been impatiently tapping his barometer and keeping a beady eye on the forecast and in his practised Cassandra voice was warning that  things weren’t looking too good for Dolly‘s press night (Yes, press night! How grand is that? See what you can achieve when one of you dons a prosthetic Ian Shuttleworth suit and the other simply claims to be new boy Henry Hitchings? The people at the press desk didn’t suspect a thing).

But we digress.

Review: Twelfth Night, Donmar West End

Ok, sit down. Take a deep breath, take a Valium and take the day off. The Whingers are about to start chucking a few superlatives around.

You may well think you’ve come to the wrong place (indeed you almost certainly have) as it’s well documented that the Whingers don’t really do Shakespeare, especially the comedies as they’re usually even less comic than My Family.

But director Michael Grandage (named Best Director at the Evening Standard Theatre Awards for Othello / The Chalk Garden / Ivanov) can do little wrong at the moment in the Whingers’ eyes.

And last night he caused the Whingers actually to laugh. Not once, but over and over again. Out loud. At a Shakespeare play.