Theatre review: I’m Gonna Pray For You So Hard

A disturbing little piece at the Finborough in Halley Feiffer's I’m Gonna Pray For You So Hard, another American play about writing but dealing with a different popular opinion about the profession than Sex With Strangers did: Laura Eason's play was about the writer as part of some noble calling; Feiffer's subject is the writer as damaged goods, the Hemingway model of the alcoholic genius and the idea that the better the writer, the worse the human being. By that logic David (Adrian Lukis) must be an amazing writer: A celebrated playwright, he has a single daughter, Ella (Jill Winternitz,) whom he had late in life with his second wife. Ella is an actress who's just opened as Masha in a prestige revival of The Seagull, but her father wastes no opportunity to mention that getting any role other than Nina makes her a failure. It's Press Night but instead of waiting with the rest of the cast for the reviews, she's getting drunk at home with David.

Theatre review: Andy Capp The Musical

Taking its cue from the success of You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown, a British comic strip got in on the game of trying a musical spin-off; the unlikely team of Alan Price from The Animals (music and lyrics) and Trevor Peacock from The Vicar of Dibley (book and lyrics) came up with Andy Capp The Musical in 1982. It did make it to the West End but presumably not for long, as it becomes the latest "forgotten" British musical to get a revival as the Finborough's alternate show. Roger Alborough plays Reg Smythe's famous creation Andy Capp, the permanently unemployed layabout who still seems to find the money to get drunk every night. Andy's wife Flo (Lynn Robertson Hay) is the one with a job, but she still has to beg him for money if she wants to go to bingo, or to buy something special - like a new dress for a wedding.