Review – Promises, Promises, Broadway Theatre

We may have to make our Show Rating system even more complicated and bewildering that it already is.

For how are we supposed to give a single rating to a show that was a 2 or a 3 at the interval and a 5 15 minutes into the second act?

This is Promises, Promises at The Broadway Theatre, the Burt Bacharach musical with lyrics by Hal David, a book by Neil Simon. But the classy provenance does not end there for it is based on Billy Wilder‘s classic film, The Apartment.

That’s a good start to proceedings. But there’s more: add Sean Hayes (Jack from Will & Grace), Kristin Chenoweth (alcoholic April Rhodes in Glee) and put  Chicago-the-movie Donmar Streetcar director  Rob Ashford in charge of it all and it’s looking very promising.

But wait! Get scenic designer Scott Pask (Hair, Behanding) to construct some gorgeous sixties chic à la Mad Men and his twin brother Bruce Pask to work wonders with the color (sic) palette for the costumes and you’ve got something that simply could not fail except, except…

Review – Hair, Gielgud Theatre

The Whingers finally made their stage debuts! Dancing in a musical! Wearing flowers in their hair! Tripping! (Over the carpet)

And we can truthfully tell you: we were utterly fabulous! And you missed it.

Yes, you read that correctly. The Gielgud Theatre London. Not The Al Hirschfeld Theatre on The Broadway where Hair is still playing. And there was yet another first. This is the full original cast brought over from the Broadway revival and yes, we’re still here in New York. Got that? Confused? We are.

And you know what? It’s so hot on a West End stage we were tempted to strip (they’ve even installed extra generators in the street for some reason). Not that the heat stopped us gyrating wildly, giving our all like the troupers we are. We won’t need understudies. You won’t find a slip in your programme or hear groans from the audience as an announcement just before the curtain rises intones “Due to their indisposition The Whingers will not be appearing”. We’ll do 8 shows a week quite happily. And we promise to keep our clothes on. Yes, we were first on stage as the cast invited the audience to join them on stage at the end of the show (about 200 apparently counted by ushers with clickers, it’s a health and safety thing) and we were the last off. They even extended the curtain call at last Saturday night’s preview so impressive were our performances. See, we told you we were fabulous.

Review – A Behanding in Spokane, Schoenfeld Theatre

And be-jetlagged on B-Broadway, the be-whinging began.

Be-Jesus, going to the theatre on The Broadway is a strange experience. It’s really not very friendly at all.

Waiting innocently for Phil to emerge from the Schoenfeld Theatre rest-room Andrew was twice told to move along by an extremely officious usher. “I’m just waiting for my friend to attend to his bladder again,” he explained only for the woman to repeat her instruction – but with the dial turned up from “frosty” to “mildly aggressive”.

The usher at the top of the aisle seemed quite friendly until he looked at our tickets and saw that we weren’t within his realm. Turning away quite regally he uttered, “The usher at the front will seat you” in a tone so weary with disdain that the Whingers were quite awestruck by his ability to dismiss them so utterly in eight innocent words.

And so it went on.