Andrew is on sabbatical but Phil is soldiering on to help you decide between the Merlot and the Marlowe and generally putting London's West End theatre to rights
In which Phil acts as advisor to Mel Brooks.
Phil’s having a half-arsed catch up of shows he missed during his confinement. Or you could say a catch up on the seventies since this is his third in a row that steals from classic movies from that decade (Network, The Exorcist). Though this is less of a catch up than a revisiting. Of sorts. Read the rest of this entry »
We must declare an interest.
UNWRAPPED: May Contain Strallens & Musical Nuts came to us not just with Strallens and nuts but contained the Whingers’ patented “Strallometer” (see below) which we created to grade any show containing one of the ubiquitous Strallen clan. It was used with our full permission and cleverly animated using technology way beyond our technical wherewithal.
For this was a one-off Sunday evening cabaret produced by Strallen père, Sandy Strallen* to show off the not inconsiderable talents of 2 of his seed (Summer and Zizi), with the “Musical Nuts” coming in the form of the Casey sisters (Natalie and Anna-Jane). One might be tempted to call them “nut Caseys”. Read the rest of this entry »
Andrew recently passed a big and significant landmark which, to put it delicately, did not involve sitting aboard the 52 bus and whizzing past the Royal Albert Hall.
No, it was one of those occasions where everyone was coming up with ideas for unusual things he could do on the actual day. Phil suggested he stayed in and blew the dust off that anthology of Harold Pinter he gave him several birthdays ago. Some hope. (In case you’re interested, he ended up spending it with Nancy Lam)
But if Andrew ever feels despondent about his advancing years he can always instantly feel 20 years younger for the price of a theatre ticket – at least for as long as Top Hat runs.
The Whingers were feeling almost nubile amongst the Aldwych crowd. When Phil stood up before the show started to see how many were in the orchestra pit (15 for the record) a shrinking mittel-European lady behind him tapped him on the shoulder and anxiously enquired, “I hope you’re not going to keep standing up during ze show”. Read the rest of this entry »
The Whingers could think of many reasons not to see Love Never Dies, the long-awaited (although by whom is unclear) sequel to The Phantom of the Opera.
Phil was impressed with the spectacle of the original when he saw its first preview a zillion years ago but when he when revisited it with Phantom virgin* Andrew years later he was shocked by how, well, tedious it actually is.
On the plus side if you really must do a follow-up then a storyline set in Coney Island sounds just up the Whingers’ alleys. Just think of the visual possibilities! The Whingers’ inner juries were definitely going to examine all the evidence before deciding whether or not another crime against musical theatre had been committed. Phil even admitted to being quite excited about going.
But word-of-mouth from die-hard Phantom wasn’t encouraging: there are 53 pages (and still counting) of largely negative comment on the WhatsOnStage forum, largely from Phantom fans. If they didn’t like it what chance would the Whingers have?
Still, there obviously IS a demand from the press at least because the nice people at Peter Thompson Associates who are handling PR for the show wrote a very nice email back to the Whingers to say that “due to the extremely high demand and a strictly limited ticket allocation we will not be able to provide you with press tickets for this show”.
How cruelly dashed on the rocks of pecking orders were our dreams of endless first nights, unlimited free drink and casual hob-nobbing with celebrities at after-show parties. Bet Biggins got an invite.
So anyway, it was down to the Whingers to fork out their own money like the ordinary theatre-goers they once were, and are apparently again, for £37.50 EACH in the UPPER (oh, the shame of it) Circle of the Adelphi.
So let us examine the case for and against Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber‘s latest opus. Read the rest of this entry »
A West End Whinger 