The WhatsOnStage.com Awards 2010

Someone behind the WhatsOnStage.com Awards 2010 must have a slightly twisted sense of humour. Or incredible insight.

Why would they assume that on Valentine’s Day both Whingers would be available? Do we really give off the stench of lonely ageing bachelors available to turn up on the most romantic day of the year rather than cosying up with a beloved in some over-priced eaterie?

Well, read into this whatever you like, but as it happened the Whingers were both free. They had been invited to occupy the press room backstage at the 10th year of the awards and “interview the winners”. Mmmmm, interview. The Whingers discussed this opportunity, decided it sounded like quite a lot of work and opted instead to act as a couple of bookends for the winners’ photographs to add a touch of glamour to the proceedings (as if the evening wasn’t glamorous enough).

New Year Sulking

Yes, it’s very quiet here, isn’t it?  To be honest, there’s quite a lot of sulking going on. To discover that the Whingers don’t make it onto the Stage 100 List of the most powerful people in theatre was, frankly, a bit of a blow.

But then it was very controversial. Michael Billington spluttered, “Does John Barrowman really have more power than Nick Kent who runs the Tricycle Theatre?” which is certainly true on our case because – as far as we know – John Barrowman has never barred us from anything whereas the Tricycle has.

And then came the New Year Honours list. We’re not bitter. We’re glad that Margaret Tyzack is now a CBE (although it seems a bit of a wasted opportunity for a new theatrical DBE). And it’s now Sir Patrick Stewart and Dame Nicholas Hytner or something.

Speaking of Dames, the Whingers were rather amused by the bit in Victoria Wood’s Mid-Life Christmas in which áctress Bo Beaumont dismissed Diana Rigg’s damehood as being “for her charity work”.

Anyway, other disappointments already this year include not being invited to the Baddeley Cake celebration at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane on twelfth night. As the Arthur Lloyd theatre history site explains:

It is named after Robert Baddeley who was a popular actor at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane for many years until he died in 1794 during the run of his most celebrated part, Moses in ‘School for Scandal.’

Baddeley left instructions that on the death of his wife ‘certain monies’ were ‘to go to the society established for the relief of indigent persons belonging to Drury Lane Theatre.’ And amongst other requests he also left provision that the interest from £100 be used on the Twelfth Night of every year for the purchase of a cake, with wine and punch, for the Drury Lane Company in residence to partake of in the Green Room of the Theatre so that they might remember him.

Remarkably this tradition has survived and Baddeley is indeed celebrated and remembered each year on the 6th of January to this day.

You can find pictures of past Baddeley Cakes here and here.