Whipping It Up On London’s West End

Whipping It Up, The Bush Theatre’s sell-out smash hit comedy, transfers to the New Ambassador’s Theatre for a strictly limited West End season, opening on Thursday 22 February. Steve Thompson’s timely, hilarious political satire opened at The Bush in November last year, and was subsequently extended, due to public demand.

“Everything they say is true, then? Black ties; cigar smoke; whiskey in cut glass. Westminster runs the country, but the Whips run Westminster. The cabinet is the veneer”

Thompson’s rapier-sharp play, which explores the machinations of Government, exposing the infamous workings of the Whips’ Office, has been further developed for the West End production. Tamara Harvey remounts multi-award winning director and playwright Terry Johnson’s production with the stellar original cast, which includes Richard Wilson, Robert Bathurst and Lee Ross. Kellie Bright joins the cast in the West End as ‘Maggie’.

Topically, Whipping It Up is set in the precarious early days of a future Tory government, which clings onto a tiny majority of three. A week before Christmas, a seemingly straightforward piece of legislation suddenly takes on absurd political significance and, with the PM chummying up to the President in Washington, every trick is needed to keep the strays in line, particularly when there’s already the whiff of a leadership challenge in the air.

Battle-weary veterans of the game, the Chief Whip (Richard Wilson) and smooth-talking Deputy Alastair (Robert Bathurst), are forced to pass on the mysteries of their Machiavellian craft to sharp-suited new boy Tim (Lee Ross), whose chosen weapons are rather more brutal than the delicate ‘threat of a threat’ employed by the old guard. Meanwhile the Opposition Deputy Whip (Helen Schlesinger) has her sights firmly set on Alistair, her opposite number both professionally and romantically.

They're in for a long night, with boy scouts and ramblers threatening to riot in Whitehall, five Tory rebels on the loose, sexual blackmail, and both the press and the opposition rising to the scent of panic. MPs are manoeuvred like chess pieces as the evening progresses, but will the Whips manage to avoid checkmate without having to reveal the secrets hidden in their closely guarded safe?

Steve Thompson won the 2005 Meyer-Whitworth Award for his first play Damages, a Bush discovery, and has since been writing extensively for television. For this, only his second play, and his first in the West End, his meticulous research into the closely-guarded secret world of the Whips has included input from Michael Portillo, Gyles Brandreth and several other anonymous sources. Terry Johnson is one of the UK’s foremost playwrights and directors and has recently been represented in the West End by One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest, Hitchcock Blonde, Entertaining Mr Sloane, The Graduate, Dead Funny, Hysteria, Elton John's Glasses and The Memory Of Water.

At The New Ambassador’s Theatre, West Street, London, WC2H 9ND
Monday-Saturday at 7.30pm, Matinees on Wednesday and Saturday at 2.30pm
Ticket prices: from £20 to £45