Frank and Percy - Windsor / Bath / The Other Palace

An octogenarian……

Really enjoyed this, only the first performance, a bit clunky and some prompting required but the twinkle was there.

Give it a few weeks, Allam & McKellen will be having a hoot.


Stage has a revolve and expect that is what caused last nights issues.

It's slight, sweet, middlebrow, predictable - exactly what you'd expect from the poster - and sometimes very funny. It's also too long. It's a two-act play that is crying out to be a ninety-minute one-act. Allam and McKellen are charming, it has a nice set, and it needs to lose twenty-five minutes of stage time and the interval.

The next new play at Windsor, also directed by Sean Mathias, also seems to be benchtastic

theatreroyalwindsor.co.uk/alone-together/

No he doesn’t but he might rest up…Judi Dench is going to do an event this autumn, touring, on her book. I’ll be going cos you never know - her or me. 

Do you think it could run in the West End? 

There's a bit in this clip which made me laugh!

Yes, this is enjoyable and has some excellent lines. To see these two icons is always a pleasure; McKellen is well within his comfort zone, Allam has to work a little harder - he also had a few problems with lines tonight.

The play itself is a harmless love story, funny and poignant in parts, good on anti-ageism, but it does seem to skim over the surface of life somehow. It feels too light-hearted to go into depth even when sad things happen. Interesting detour into cancel culture which might have merited deeper delving.

Disappointing for a play with so much dog content not to see a single mutt on stage (although there was plenty of bitching).

Any playhouse it would fit.

I LOVED this tonight.

Though it could go deeper, I believed in the characters; the play is very funny, in that McKellen's character never misses a chance to rib Allam's character; it's touching, because the characters are getting on, but like at any age, they still connection.

Some spoilers follow. . .

The play isn't about climate change, or anything the characters talk about: it's about the fact of talking, and relating, about the moments between talking, of listening, about how to talk and how to listen; it's about two very different people (McKellen's Percy, a talker, a joker, a mover, a shaker, more socially adept, and the other, Allam's Frank, a listener, a dreamer, straightforward, less socially adept), both desperately in need of connection, beyond their bond with invisible dogs.

This isn't a play about twists and turns, grand surprises and original visions: it's a simple affirmation of connection, depicting how the obstacles to connection are us; it's about a relationship developing chronologically, the small things that fill our days, inevitable setbacks, small joys to be savoured as long as humanly possible.

It's also about how good McKellen is, at doing something on stage when he's ostensibly doing nothing, at thinking, at being alive and in a moment, and how good Allam is at simply being. Both are as fascinating, when they are not talking, as when they are.

It's a straightforward play, funny and moving, never showy.

For me, it lives up to the promise of Weatherill's "Jellyfish." There is less drama (obstacles are internal and character-based rather than external, like the parents in "Jellyfish" that protectively stood in the way of their daughter seeking connection), but both plays depict the pursuit of love and laughs, the value of that, whether you're young or old.

An easy 4 stars from me.

This was quite a fun evening out - light-hearted, charming and well acted (of course). It was nice to see a play about a new relationship between older people and also the exploration of the bond between owners and dogs. The digression into climate change politics was a bit jarring - not well woven into the play. Otherwise nicely observed dialogue, if occasionally a bit cliched.

The direction felt a bit pedestrian, design okay with a nice woodland backdrop, though a bit odd that a year or so passed by and the trees remained summer-green.


I am surprised this has been offered so widely on papering sites, when it seems to have appeal - dogs, romance, feel-good factor and Ian McKellen. Is that down to Windsor being hard to get to/get back from in the evening? Or not enough theatregoers in the local area? I assume with talk of a West End transfer it must be due to location rather than it being a hard play to sell.

This surprise me too but the previous two McKellan's in Windsor ended widely papered too. We went down to Windsor for both and the train was easy and cheap, theatre quite close and loads of nice places to eat. It's not even an hour on the train from Waterloo but I assume people just think it's far and a hassle.