Review – Dreamgirls, Savoy Theatre

The was an incident during the extended interval of last night’s preview performance of Dreamgirls.

Police swooped into the Savoy’s gorgeous auditorium creating a fine old brouhaha. It can’t have been good for bar takings. Punters lurked in the stalls craning their necks to see what all the fuss was about.

Had the rozzers been called in to stop the unnecessary and deeply annoying X Factor whooping, applauding and ovating that had been going on mid-songs? We could only live in hope. Couldn’t agree more with Mr Shenton.

Review – The Bodyguard, Dominion Theatre

“BEVERLEY KNIGHT IN THE BODYGUARD”

Well, that’s what our only souvenir from the show, a flyer, claims (programmes are a whopping £8, which is more than a mug at a mere £7). But, long-sighted buyers beware, in ant-sized type on the back it states she’s “currently scheduled to appear at Tuesday to Friday evening performances and both performances on Saturday, subject to illness and holidays”.

We’ve been caught that way before. When we saw The Bodyguard in its first run at the Adelphi Theatre, headliner Heather Headley had better things to do and we saw her (albeit very good) stand in.

So second time lucky. Fortunately for us it wasn’t a Monday night or Wednesday matinee and Ms Knight wasn’t suffering croup or lying on a sun lounger with a pina colada somewhere but giving considerable wellie (welly?) on the Dominion stage.

Review – Mr Foote’s Other Leg, Hampstead Theatre

We must declare an interest of sorts.

Ian Kelly, who wrote this play, Mr Foote’s Other Leg, once generously donated two of the drawings that he created live on stage in The Pitman Painters as a charity raffle prize for a The West End Whingers’ party. Remember those days? We do. But only just.

Based on Kelly’s own award-winning biography (which goes by the same name – and why wouldn’t it? It’s a nifty title) of Samuel Foote, 18th century actor, impressionist, comedian, satirist, warm up man, pamphleteer, female impersonator, playwright, theatre manager of The Haymarket and writer of the first true-crime bestseller. He also, rather carelessly lost a leg, but that wasn’t to lead to his downfall. Other events led to that.

Review – Great Britain National Theatre

“OZZY’S SNAKE ATE MY PUSSY” screams a tabloid headline on stage as you take your seat in the Lyttleton Theatre, pretty much setting the tone for the almost three hours of Richard Bean‘s new comedy Great Britain, about hacking scandals, the press and how it links to politics and police.

The production was unveiled at the eleventh hour once the phone hacking trials were concluded and opened to the critics without previews. You could say the press verdicts had to wait for the verdicts on the press.

Review – The Bodyguard, Adelphi Theatre

Despite it having been 1992’s second-highest-grossing film* neither of the Whingers ever quite got round to seeing The Bodyguard. On the other hand no wild horses would have been required to get them to the sadly urrealised sequel starring Princess Diana as the romantic lead. We can only dream. In the meantime…

Review – Timon of Athens, National Theatre

So, on vellum then, not looking too promising. 

Rarely performed and generally considered to be one of Shakespeare’s problem plays, Timon of Athens has had just one outing on The Broadway, according to the gospel of St Wiki.

Apparently it was co-authored by Thomas Middleton and is incomplete. Who knows? (Derek Jacobi and Mark Rylance probably).

Two of them writing together and they couldn’t finish it? Was there a more pressing stack of ironing? Sounds scarily familiar to us. Unfinished is a bit of a conundrum: might it go on forever or end abruptly in under three hours? TOA sounded a bit of a tease.

Review – Shrek the Musical, Theatre Royal Drury Lane

The Curate’s Egg of this summer’s musicals…

Review – Mrs Klein, Almeida Theatre

Dear Andrew,

Where are you? You don’t call, you don’t write, you don’t Twitter, have you turned into Stephen Fry? And you keep sending me off to see things on my own, it’s all rather disquieting.

I heard rumours you were spotted in Coventry earlier this week. I can quite categorically state it wasn’t me who sent you there.

By the time you receive this letter the run of Mrs Klein will probably have ended long ago and we’ll be DBEs.

It’s all beginning to look rather peculiar. The last time you sent me off to the Almeida Theatre it was Duet for One, a play set around a series of therapy sessions.

Are you trying to tell me something?

Review – Endgame, Duchess Theatre

Phil is taking to religion, believing there could possibly be a God.

Even stranger, Phil has another new perspective on the universe: that Andrew is a star twinkling brighter than any luminary treading the West End stage. Yes, it’s too much to take in, won’t last very long and you can be certain Andrew will milk this one.

The reason for this curious state of mind? Andrew rang Phil on Tuesday morning sounding as if something very, very terrible had happened. Was Too Close To The Sun being revived? No. Andrew was mumbling in a quite unnecessarily apologetic tone, “It turns out I didn’t book the tickets for the interminably long and almost  universally derided pig’s ear that is Mother Courage at the National Theatre after all.”

Having thought themselves doomed to seeing at least the first act that evening, the effect was quite astonishing. Phew! Phil’s mood lifted instantly. His metaphorical sun came out as he experienced more relief than a Swedish massage parlour. It turned out that both Whingers had been dreading it. Phil wondered why he’d agreed in the first place and Andrew had even been trying to give the (non existent) tickets away. Unsurprisingly there were no takers.

Hence they ended up at the Duchess Theatre watching Endgame instead. But to replace an evening’s Brecht with an evening’s Beckett is surely an Olympian Whingerian jump out of the frying pan and into the proverbial?