Review – Allelujah!, Bridge Theatre

You have to hand it to The Bridge Theatre for jumping the gun. The publicity tells us that “Alan Bennett’s new play Allelujah! is as sharp as The History Boys and as funny as The Lady in the Van“. Err, we’ll get back to you on that.

Notice there’s no mention of Mr Bennett’s last two offerings, The Habit of Art and People. We can’t imagine why.

Review – Chariots of Fire, Gielgud Theatre

A bit slow off the starting blocks with this one.

Anyway, a tip: don’t ask the ushers at Chariots of Fire if Mr Bean is appearing. At the first post-opening ceremony performance Phil checked but they had apparently been asked several times already.

Failing to obtain tickets for any Olympic events, this seemed the nearest alternative to try and get into the spirit of the games and Phil was intrigued: he’d been having a drink outside a hostelry near the Gielgud Theatre a few days earlier when a complete stranger came up and congratulated him on his performance in COF. Who could she mean? Most of the cast weren’t even born when that strangely over-awarded 1981 film came out which left a few of the more senior cast members. So Nicholas Grace or Simon Williams perhaps? Bizarre.

This West End transfer from the Hampstead Theatre was announced before it even opened there; so in some ways swifter than Mark Cavendish Lizzie Armitstead Wiggo.

Review – Yes, Prime Minister, Gielgud Theatre

The Whingers can be notoriously fickle.

After initial flickers of interest in seeing the Chichester transfer Yes, Prime Minister in its earlier incarnation, well you know how it is, other shows fluttered their seductive eyelids at us, dragged us knee-tremblingly up the West End back alleys and somehow it just dropped off our rather slipshod radar.

So it came and went and toured and came back again. Then it got shunted a couple of doors up Shaftesbury Avenue, presumably to fill the void left when Lend Me A Tenor took an early bath (hark at us using sporting metaphors!) and an opportunity presented itself, well to Phil at least as Andrew was experiencing other behind-the-scenes power shenanigans by Tinker Tailor Soldier Spying.