Review – Magic Goes Wrong, Vaudeville Theatre

Phil thinks he knows a thing or two about magic.

After all it was he who was selected by Paul Daniels to perform alongside him and the lovely Debbie McGee in their Edinburgh show a few years back, taking part in a few tricks and ultimately facing the guillotine. When you’re kneeling with your head trapped in a lunette and staring into a head-catching basket stage nerves are replaced by a certain fear of what happens if something should go wrong.

So Phil has not inconsiderable respect for the sheer technical wizardry involved in Mischief Theatre‘s latest venture Magic Goes Wrong (the second production of their year long residency in the west end), in which the team play a hotchpotch of magicians presenting a charity event that of course goes disastrously wrong. Think Tommy Cooper but with a massive budget.

Review – Groan Ups, Vaudeville Theatre

In the week where a new theatrical comedy, The Man in the White Suit, was met with general critical grumpiness you’d need nerves of steel to be opening another. And let’s face it you’d be hard pressed to come up with something more hilarious than Coleen Rooney being dubbed Wagatha Christie.

Theatrical Catch Up: From On the Town to The Mentor

It’s been a while.

Phil’s been busy having a bit of work done. At home. Not on his face. Yet.

Review – Hand to God, Vaudeville Theatre

Janie Dee pulled out of Mrs Henderson Presents before it launched in Bath last year. After visiting that dispiriting show last week we thought she’d had a lucky escape. After suffering at the err, hand of Hand to God we’re not so sure.

Something of a hit in New York, both off and on Broadway, you can’t say that it  doesn’t do what it says on the tin with its poster screaming “Sesame Street meets The Exorcist”.

Dee plays recently widowed Margery who runs a Christian puppet group in a church hall, possibly as something of a therapy session for her troubled (schizophrenic?) son Jason (Harry Melling) who fists a rather odd sock puppet called Tyrone which unsurprisingly develops an even more disturbed personality of its own.

Review – Handbagged, Vaudeville Theatre

Strange how things come in pairs.

Phil recently saw two Nunns back to back and now this is his second play in a row portraying living royals.

Of course the Queen is missing from Mike Bartlett’s King Charles III but in Moira Buffini‘s offering, Handbagged, she’s very much alive. There’s two Queens; an older version, Q (Marion Bailey) and one younger, Liz (Lucy Robinson). But some may feel it should come with a warning, “this play contains two Margaret Thatchers”.

Review – Uncle Vanya, Vaudeville Theatre

Oh dear, oh dear. We shouldn’t really be surprised but the Whingers seem to be of an age.

We had always taken Uncle Vanya to be a character for the almost-elderly –  one of the last big actorly stops before King Lear.

But Vanya is practically a child. In Lindsay Posner‘s new production (translation by Christopher Hampton) they have even aged him up six years (to edge a little closer to the actor Ken Stott‘s actual age). This is what you get for reading up on things. It was all a bit traumatic and without being too specific, let’s just say that it won’t be long before the Whingers are perceiving Lear as some kind of callow youth too. It’s all rather depressing.

Review – What the Butler Saw, Vaudeville Theatre

Was it a cigar or a phallus?

Edna Welthorpe (Mrs) would not have enjoyed the post-show discussion following the Whingers’ visit to the Vaudeville Theatre to see a preview of What the Butler Saw for the Whingers found themselves mired in struggles to recall the ins and outs of Winston Churchill’s private member vis a vis the Lord Chamberlain.

Review – Master Class, Vaudeville Theatre

If the Whingers were writing nine word reviews (dream on) then an overheard from a precise elderly gentleman at the interval of Master Class might suffice; “She was a bit of a diva wasn’t she?” Quite.

The Whingers found no challenge camouflaging themselves amongst the throng of gentlemen d’un certain âge cramming this Broadway transfer at the Vaudeville Theatre where further eavesdropping supplied wistful reminisces like “Well, I saw Sutherland, but I never saw Callas.”

Yet even if we superficially blended into this expensively fragrant crowd (Andrew sporting a cravat, Phil’s pashmina insouciantly thrown over his shoulder), cheap aftershave the only giveaway to our lack of class and money, the Whingers just aren’t the sort of chaps who do opera. Like Maria Callas it’s all Greek to us. Our loss no doubt. If Terrence McNally‘s hugely enjoyable entertainment (director Stephen Wadsworth) doesn’t convert us little will.

Review – In a Forest, Dark and Deep, Vaudeville Theatre

“The truth hurts”, according to Mr Neil LaBute‘s latest grim-fest, In a Forest, Dark and Deep, currently playing at the Vaudeville.

In which case untold agonies shall surely be the fate of Mr Matthew Fox and Miss Olivia Williams upon hearing that showbusiness’s gain has in no way been Pickfords’ loss.

For nigh on 90 minutes these two relatively well-known (and presumably trained) thespians are called upon to pack books (urgently yet) and frankly their stagecraft makes for a most pitiful sight. They could have read all the books in the time it takes them to fanny about putting them into boxes.

Review – Potted Panto, Vaudeville Theatre

Described as “seven classic pantos in eighty minutes” Potted Panto features six classic pantos and another traditional Christmas show in 95 minutes (including interval).

It’s performed by “CBBC’s Dan and Jeff”, CBBC being something akin to Watch With Mother . It seems Daniel Clarkson and Jefferson Turner are the Patricia Driscoll and Vera McKechnie of their day.

Review – An Ideal Husband, Vaudeville Theatre

” I nearly wore my bow tie, thank goodness I didn’t,” mused Andrew as the Hamiltons breezed through the foyer of the Vaudeville Theatre at the press night of Oscar Wilde‘s An Ideal Husband at the Vaudeville Theatre. Andrew hates competition.

It was another glittering, but surprisingly celebrity-lite opening. Neil and Christine were there, the former sporting a pink bow artfully matched with Christine’s outfit.

But it has given Phil an idea. Next time the Whingers will coordinate too. Andrew will wear something blue to set off Phil’s varicose veins and Phil will wear something mis-shapen to match Andrew’s face.

Lesley Garrett was there too.

Review – The Prisoner of Second Avenue, Vaudeville Theatre

Isn’t it wonderful to see actors up there on the stage, relaxed and enjoying themselves?

Even if it is only for 60 seconds during the curtain call.

The Whingers have a stuff-and-nonsense approach to previews but it’s fair to say that this attempt to whip up an old Neil Simon confection may well be only  half-baked. By the time it opens on 13th July, perhaps director Terry Johnson will have the thing bubbling happily away but last night it was sizzling like a plate of cold tapioca.

Review – Private Lives, Vaudeville theatre

The Whingers were a bit slow off the mark with this Private Lives. They saw the excellent production at Hampstead last year and weren’t sure they had the puissance for yet another PL, this despite Phil being quite a fan of Kim Cattrall in Sex and the City* – the TV series of course, not the disappointing, past its sell-by date film.

Andrew of course knows nothing of such televisual things and only warms up his valves if there is the promise of a Time Lord, a Marple or a bonnet. And it wasn’t even the glowing 4 and 5 star reviews that really lured them in to the Vaudeville Theatre.

Review – Megan Mullally and Supreme Music Program, Vaudeville Theatre

Let’s make it quite clear Megan Mullally is not Karen Walker.

Ignore the hoarding outside the Vaudeville Theatre where Megan Mullally & Supreme Music Program (sic) are appearing which bills her as the two time Emmy-winning star of Will & Grace, Miss Mullally made it quite clear early in Tuesday’s show: “Karen’s not here”.

No, Karen’s not here. Mullally turned up for her London debut bespectacled and in in a black suit. She’s opted for the Nana Mouskouri meets Davina Mccall look. Or, as one of the Whingers’ considerable entourage thought, Tina Fey.

Oh, and she doesn’t do show tunes.

Review – Woman in Mind, Vaudeville Theatre

Andrew was very, very busy in his garden Saturday morning.* Trimming his vine, to be exact. Thank goodness he didn’t fall on his secateurs or – worse – knock himself out with the rake.

Imagine that he had awoken in some fantasy life of his own making:  sitting all day in a theatre watching his all-time favourite productions on some kind of bizarre cerebral loop: Hairspray, Entertaining Mr Sloane, La Cage aux Folles, things with Jasper Britton (excluding Fram, of course) or perhaps – and more appropriately – constant mental re-runs of The Chalk Garden.

Imagine his whole world viewed through a proscenium arch. Perhaps Maria Friedman would serve him tea at his imagined matinées and a Dame of the British Empire would hook him up to a Merlot drip each evening.

Imagine Andrew’s tailor-made world fashioned to exclude Caryl Churchill, Pinter, Joe Sutton and Polly Stenham. It would be a world without theatrical boredom, restlessness or frustration. A perfect world of complete and utter theatrical Judith Bliss.

Which brings us, and not before time, to Alan Ayckbourn‘s Woman in Mind.