Review – Twelfth Night, National Theatre

Hope you didn’t mind the gap.

Phil felt unmoved to bother writing about his last few theatrical disappointments, he’d been catching up on shows in the last weeks of their runs anyway. Also he’s been going to the pictures. A lot. And by avoiding the disappointments of theatre he’s been able to enjoy being disappointed by some over-praised films.

Review – Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, The Musical

Last week Phil was due to see Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown but it seemed the show itself was having a breakdown of its own.

He’s already reported about turning up at the Playhouse theatre a week last Monday to find it cancelled as three, yes, three of the leads were off sick. A friend who had been the Saturday before reported that apparently the director had come on stage before the performance to apologise for the cast feeling ‘tired and under the weather’. Surely not a wise move. If you’ve forked out for a ticket you don’t really want to know this. What were they hoping for a sympathy vote?

All were present on Tuesday, though they’d had the official opening and an after-show party the night before yet no one appeared tired. With the frenetic goings on in this musical adaptation of Pedro Almodóvar‘s farcical 1988 film tiredness would not sit too happily with the madness they have to contend with.

Review – Longing, Hampstead Theatre

Choosing a title for your play must be a bit like negotiating a minefield. It’s a wonder Princess Diana never got involved.

Unless you’re Ernie Wise or Alan Ayckbourn you’ve probably spent months, possibly years, crafting, polishing and honing it. And surely then dithering over a name by which it will be known for perpetuity.

A very good play with an iffy title may, possibly, not matter too much. But a bad play with the wrong moniker can give critics a field day.

Review – Jumpy, Royal Court

Hard to believe, but even the Whingers were young once.

Then we took our eyes off the road and somehow time sneaked up from behind, overtaking recklessly, driving off the highway of life and leaving us temporarily stranded in the lay-by of middle age. Happily we are fully equipped with spare tyres to enable our journeys to continue.

Hilary (Tamsin Greig) is having a mid-life crisis. She’s 50 and suffering panic attacks; presumably the Jumpy of the title (another titular reference is revealed at the end). Her job’s in danger and her marriage to a relentlessly dull husband Mark (Ewan Stewart) has become little more than friendship, the aridness of her partnership only hydrated by frequent glasses of wine. Could this be the reason for the Whingers’ drinking too?

Review – The Little Dog Laughed, Garrick Theatre

What a queer year it’s already turning out to be. This is only the third theatrical sortie for the Whingers and it’s the third in which gay matters form a significant part of the plot. Homosexuality is going to be to 2010 what on-stage-vomiting was to 2008 and on-stage-limping was to 2009. With nudity running a close second.

It seems there’s no danger of the Whingers’ patented Gay-O-Meter rusting in one of Andrew’s neglected crannies. He’ll be swishing his Mr Muscle with gay abandon and rubbing like there’s no tomorrow to keep it in sparkling condition, which is a little gay in itself. Phil has entreated Andrew to get extra batteries to ensure uninterrupted running. Three out of the four characters in Douglas Carter Beane‘s Broadway comedy The Little Dog Laughed at the Garrick Theatre are gay, pinging the Gay-o-Meter needle to an impressive 75% on the dial. It was twitching as soon as the tickets tumbled through the letter box.

Review – Gethsemane by David Hare, National Theatre

One of the many questions that Whingers get asked is: why do you go to see things that you’re so clearly not going to enjoy?

That and: “What do you think you’re doing with my wine?”

The answer to the former is that the Whingers are constantly hoping to better themselves. While this may seem to you to display a distinct paucity of ambition, the Whingers are committed to exposing themselves to as wide a range of cultural input as possible. It is their hope that theatre can expand their horizons, challenge their thinking and create new dreams for them to live. Very like Mr Barack Obama in this respect, the Whingers dare to hope for change we need.

Playwright David Hare is a case in point. Not known for his musicals, whodunnits nor lately for amusingly written parts for Dames of the British Empire (Amy’s View being the most recent we can think of) he seems, on the surface of it, to have little on his stall that might attract the attention of a passing Whinger.

Yet Gethsemane could so easily have gone either way; Andrew had been much moved by The Permanent Way, Hare’s verbatim theatrical piece on the privatisation of the railways; Phil had some good words to say about Stuff Happens (although Andrew fell asleep 15 minutes in and bailed out at the interval).