Review – Stephen Ward, Aldwych Theatre

When Phil asked Andrew if he fancied trailing along with him to the new “PG advised” Andrew Lloyd Webber musical “play with songs”, Stephen Ward, he replied, “I hope I’m not too Stephen”.

Phil, unusually, understood Andrew instantly. New cockney rhyming slang for ennui. It will no doubt form a regular part of our lexicon.

Hard to believe it’s getting on for 4 years since the Whingers visited the composer’s last show and inadvertently caused something akin to a minor rumpus.

But this in not the behemoth of Love Never Dies. This take on the Profumo Affair – following Stephen Ward’s part in the scandal and the common consent that the establishment used him a scapegoat – is a decidedly small scale offering by comparison.

Review – Crazy For You, Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre

It seemed like the least demanding way to ease the Whingers back into the reality of London Theatre (In the rum world of the Whingers the Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre‘s annual summer musical comedy counts as “reality”).

And it’s usually a dead cert (Hello, Dolly!, Gigi etc.), one of the Whingers’ annual highlights.

And Crazy For You has been showered with five star reviews, the reliable Timothy Sheader directs, it boasts a Gershwin score and – most importantly to the Whingers – it offered a welcome return to the dignity of reserved seating following weeks of queuing (usually in the rain) for shows in the frenzy that constitutes the Edinburgh Fringe.

But having been overindulged by shows mostly lasting no more than an hour, how would the Whingers cope with an interval? Would they depart thinking it was all over? Would their attention spans, unsteady at best, be able to cope or would they be off seeking a late night cabaret to round off their evening before persuading themselves to have “one” for the road in the Gilded Balloon’s Loft bar until 6am (it’s an Edinburgh thing)?

Review – Shoes, Sadler’s Wells

Here’s a tantalising insight into Phil’s idiosyncratic life:

When he returned from seeing the “song and dance revue” Shoes at Sadler’s Wells his newly-arrived house guest waved a copy of Beryl Reid‘s blithely titled autobiography So Much Love in his face, reminding him of her famous remark that she needed to find the right shoes in order to discover a character.

Now, if you ever meet a Whinger you need only look below their well-turned ankles to realise that footwear is not such a pressing concern to either of them. Andrew is rarely out of his housecoat and fluffy mules. Phil has rarely been seen in anything other than flats since the 1970s put paid to his pelvis and his chances of giving birth.

Review – Sweet Charity, Menier Chocolate Factory

Regular readers of the Whingers’ comments sections may have noticed Sir Andrew Lloyds Credit Crunch complaint that “I pay you to WHINGE, not CRAWL.”

Perhaps this will at least, in part, justify the regular charitable direct debit paid into the Whingers’ joint bank account (Andrew to Phil – what bank account? Do we have a bank account?). But, Sir Andrew, before you withdraw your generous remunerations entirely, you should know that what follows is a perfectly balanced combination of both the W word and the C word.

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.