One of the cardinal rules of theatre reviewing is that you’re not supposed to talk about the play until you’ve left the venue. This is ostensibly to stop critics influencing one another’s opinions, to force them to make up their own minds, but there’s another — better — reason, as I discovered last week. On the way out of Whose Life Is It Anyway?, a revival of Brian Clark’s hardy perennial directed by Peter Hall, I lingered in the foyer to discuss it with a colleague. I wasn’t very nice about it, but, to my astonishment, he was. ‘Shurely shome mishtake?’ I started to express myself more forcefully, but before I could get too carried away he indicated that I might want to take a look behind me. There, standing not three feet away, was Fu Manchu himself.
Ironically enough, I thought the best thing about Whose Life Is It Anyway? was the direction.
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