Who’s The Daddy

Who’s the Daddy is a new play by Toby Young and Lloyd Evans, The Spectator’s theatre critics, that presents an ever-so-slightly fictionlised version of the goings on at The Spectator last summer.
So we have Boris Johnson and Petronella Wyatt, Rod Liddle and “Tiffany”, and most famously Kimberly Quinn and David Blunkett. Add into the mix Michael Howard (“will you fall on your stake after you lose the next election?”) and a South American cook (really only there to provide a Peter Mandelson gag), and you have a Ray Cooney-style farce.
Very funny it is too. My knowledge of the facts of that case come exclusively from Private Eye – and it turned out that I was sitting next to an old Eye-hand in Francis Wheen. He wasn’t the only “face” in the crowd since our party also included Sun political editor (and hence one of the most powerful journalists in the land) Trevor Kavanagh, and I also spotted Toby Young, co-writer of the play, himself, along with Grub Smith (sometime FHM writer and Bravo TV presenter). OK, so not everyone in the audience was of quite the same calibre, and only one of those people has written two books, both of which I own, yet haven’t actually gotten around to reading (Wheen).
The play itself features Michelle Ryan (lately Zoe from Eastenders) as the very attractive Tiffany (an unlikely Guardian undercover reporter), and Sarah Crowe (from the Philadelphia ads and Carry on Columbus – although neither of those two gigs is likely to be at the top of her CV. She plays Petronella Wyatt).
I’ve got to be honest and say that I laughed the whole way through. I’m not sure that the play is quite going to make it beyond the confines of The Kings Head pub in Islington, because the target audience is a little thin. But I loved it all the same. You can read more from Toby Young on his blog, where he explains all – and links to the many reviews.
And I should explain that Trevor Kavanagh was in our because his son is a friend of ours. I can honestly say that this is the first time I’ve seen an audience member name-checked in the play I was watching, as happened with the very polite Kavanagh. Of course, I didn’t engage him any political issues. The civility may have ended there… (That’s twice in one week I’ve chickened out of confronting a politician). Still it was entertaining to see Francis Wheen next to me lean forward to see how Trevor was taking his mention (for the record, he enjoyed the play and the Quinn/Fortier character seemed to be particularly accurate).
Strangely, this is the second play I’ve seen set among writers from The Spectator. The fantastic Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell by Keith Waterhouse, and starring Peter O’Toole is one of the best plays I’ve ever seen in my life, with an outstanding performance from O’Toole – even on a Wednesday afternoon in a half empty theatre full of pensioners in Bath as I saw it, with my cheap student ticket.


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