Review – The Truth, Wyndham’s Theatre

People in the UK may have had enough of ghastly people who lie, deceive, betray, plot and do awful things behind so-called friend’s backs. This might make The Truth the worst possible time to pop up in the West End or it may possibly be entirely the opposite. Apposite and timely.

Michel (Alexander Hanson) is married to Samantha Bond the enigmatic Laurence (Tanya Franks) but he’s having a regular bit on the side with Alice (Frances O’Connor) when he’s not losing a sock or telling porkies to his wife. Trouble is Alice also happens to be the wife of Michel’s best friend Paul (Robert Portal). And that’s about all you really need to know as what follows is a slew of revelations about who knows what, who is lying and who thinks they are in full possession of the facts.

Review – People, Places & Things, Wyndham’s Theatre

In days of yore we would go to see practically anything at the National Theatre, even at the Dorfman (née Cottesloe), but we are getting more risk-averse as we grow older, so this becomes the fourth in our series of hoovering up the shows we’d missed first time around.

People, Places & Things comes with breathless rave reviews for Denise Gough, a recent Olivier gong for her and another for the Sound Design, whispers of a Broadway transfer, plus a title that has not only punctuation, but an ampersand, which could only raise our expectations to such absurdly vertiginous heights it could only prove a let down, couldn’t it?

Review – The King’s Speech, Wyndham’s Theatre

Last year’s musical Betty Blue Eyes was based around celebrations for the 1947 Royal Wedding and was fortuitously provided with another one. But sadly even with this marketing fillip it failed to fly (or convince us that pigs can).

And now in this Jubilee year comes another royal-themed offering The King’s Speech which in its film incarnation went on to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards though Phil maintains that the even more enjoyable and superior The Social Network was robbed.

And later in the year the Olympics-themed Chariots of Fire (another Best Film Oscar-winner) will grace the Hampstead Theatre. This is unlikely to be the last Olympic themes adaptation and the Whingers are holding their breaths in the hope that a musical adaptation of Marathon Man might be on the cards. Well, Little Shop of Horrors managed a number about dentistry, so why not?

Anyway, this The King’s Speech is the David Seidler “play that started it all”. Seidler went on to win the Best Original Screenplay at the Academy Awards just as Colin Firth famously nabbed the Best Actor door-stop. No pressure for Charles Edwards then, who takes on the role of the stammering prince Bertie forced into the position of becoming a King (George VI) when his brother opts for the lap of Mrs Simpson rather than a seat on the throne.

Review – Driving Miss Daisy, Wyndham’s Theatre

You could wait at the bus stop of theatrical expectations for years for something like this to come along: a play more familiar through the medium of cinema set in the deep south of the United States featuring Brit actors doing slightly dodgy accents – and preferably featuring hard-boiled eggs consumed live on stage.

And what happens? You get two. In a week. What are the chances?

Review – Much Ado About Nothing, Wyndham’s Theatre

In which Phil goes all Statto.

Commercially speaking, it doesn’t really matter what the critics or the audiences or anyone thinks about this show, let alone the Whingers.

The inspired pairing of David Tennant and Catherine Tate ensured Doctor Who About Nothing quickly became a big to-do about something, practically selling out before previews began; probably even before the cast had started running their fingers under their lines.

Caught up in the frenzy, Phil spent a couple of hours trying to buy tickets on a crashing website when booking opened, getting to the point of nabbing two excellent seats only to lose them. And again. And again…

Review – The Shawshank Redemption, Wyndham’s Theatre

“Dreams are what the future is made of… Hope will take you there.”

Did someone really mean that? And what did they really mean? We can’t imagine. It’s writ large in bright lights along the marquee of the Wyndham’s Theatre where The Shawshank Redemption is playing. The Whingers spent much of the interval mulling it over last night but frankly they were none the wiser once their mulling was done.

Review – Hamlet with Jude Law, Donmar at the Wyndham’s Theatre

Who could have envisaged that Phil would get to direct Mr Jude Law in Mr Shakespeare‘s Hamlet in the auspicious Donmar West End season?

For in an implausible and rather Shakespearean case of mistaken identity that’s how it seemed on Tuesday night.* During the interval Phil bumped into someone he’d met on a work trip a couple of years ago who turned to her companion and introduced Phil with the words “This is Michael Grandage, the director”.

How Phil wished he had carried on the conceit but Andrew was laughing at the idea too much. The woman was quite insistent “But you look just like him.”

Ah well, put it down to it being the hottest night of the year or perhaps the fact that Phil had walked head first into a plate glass window in Spain a few days earlier and radically altered his facial features (considerably for the better, clearly).

Review – Madame de Sade, Donmar at the Wyndham’s Theatre

Oh dear.

Review – Ivanov, Donmar West End (Wyndham’s Theatre), with Kenneth Branagh

While the rest of the world was holding its breath to find out if McCain had had his chips and the moose huntin’ maverick was back at Walmart, the West End Whingers were bating their collective, slightly wheezy breath with a far more pressing concern: would Ivanov be yet another success in their consecutive list of theatrical junkets?

Would it be assigned a place on The Bagnold Barometer or be put on their list of theatrical abasement: The Fram Scale?

Phil’s now enjoyed an unprecedented eight trips to the theatre, the only thorn in his proverbial side being An Ideal Husband (but since that was in the provinces it doesn’t seem fair to include it and spoil his extraordinary run).

Are the Whingers losing their modus operandi, their raison d’être? Will they have to start searching for a new soubriquet ? Why have they stopped writing in English?