Lloyd Evans is The Spectator's sketch-writer and theatre critic
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The Old Vic’s production of Arcadia by Tom Stoppard has a vital component missing. The house. Stoppard’s brilliant historical comedy is set in a country manor owned by the Coverly family and the script examines, among other things, the evolution of decorative taste during the 18th and 19th centuries. But no architecture is present on
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Cable Street is a musical that premièred last year at the Southwark Playhouse and has now migrated to the Marylebone Theatre. Fans of beautiful staging will be instantly smitten by the amazing achievement of the designer, Yoav Segal. The script by Tim Gilvin and Adam Kanefsky tells the story of a violent stand-off in October
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Safe Haven is a history play by Chris Bowers who worked for the Foreign Office and later for the UN as a human-rights activist. The two careers seem to be interchangeable. His drama follows an idealistic and oversensitive Oxford graduate, Catherine, who joins the diplomatic service during the first Gulf War in 1991. Catherine believes
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Woman in Mind is a dyspeptic sitcom set in 1986 starring Sheridan Smith as Susan, a moaning Home Counties housewife who slips into a Yorkshire accent when she gets cross. Susan sunbathes in her leafy garden sipping coffee and carping about everyone close to her. She loathes her scowling sister-in-law, Muriel. She can’t bear her
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A new party has entered UK politics. Take Back Power seeks to ‘tax the rich and fix Britain’ and they’re planning a revolution that will replace parliament with ‘a house of the people’. Once the regime has been overthrown, Take Back Power will divide the country’s wealth in favour of the poor. About 300 supporters showed up
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High Noon, directed by Thea Sharrock, is a perfectly decent version of a trusty western which celebrates its 74th birthday this year. An elderly sheriff, Will Kane, marries a priggish beauty, Amy, on the day of his retirement but his marital plans are overturned by news that a dangerous convict, Frank Miller, has been released
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Everyone went to the same school as someone famous. In my case it’s Spider-Man, Tom Holland, who joined my former school about 30 years after I left. Back in the mid-1970s, the most famous old boy was another superhero, Major Pat Reid, who’d been captured by the Germans during the war and briefly imprisoned in
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The Playboy of the Western World is like the state opening of parliament. Worth seeing once. Director Caitriona McLaughlin delivers a faithful production of John Millington Synge’s grand satire about dim-witted Oirish peasants and, perhaps unwisely, she spreads the show across the entire length of the vast Lyttelton stage. It looks as if it’s being
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New Year’s Eve is the party we don’t need but can’t get rid of. The location varies according to geography. City-dwellers gather in public squares and cheer at midnight as the skyrockets explode overhead and add more fumes to the blanket of urban smog. In the countryside, revellers meet in freezing farmhouse kitchens and drink
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Unusual. After the press night of Indian Ink by Tom Stoppard, no one leapt up and cheered. The crowd applauded politely at the amusing dialogue and the marvellous acting in Jonathan Kent’s handsome three-hour production but there was no standing ovation. The script feels like a literary novel overstuffed with detail. Flora Crewe is a
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Liz Truss is back. The ex-prime minister hosted a new current affairs show last night on Just The News, a multi-platform outlet. She’s not the first ex-PM to try her hand as a TV star. After Harold Wilson resigned, he briefly compered Friday Night, Saturday Morning, a BBC chat-show, which was considered a failure. Liz’s
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15 min listen
For this week’s Spectator Out Loud, we include a compilation of submissions by our writers for their greatest artwork of the 21st century so far. Following our arts editor Igor Toronyi-Lalic, you can hear from: Graeme Thomson, Lloyd Evans, Slavoj Zizek, Damian Thompson, Richard Bratby, Liz Anderson, Deborah Ross, Calvin Po, Tanjil Rashid, James Walton,
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Who doesn’t love Paddington? The winsome marmalade junkie has arrived at the Savoy Theatre in a musical version of the 2014 movie. First of all, the show is sensational. Absolute box-office gold, full of joy, mirth and spectacle. It’s also quite pricey but never mind. Sceptics who feel indifferent to children’s fiction will be relieved
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All My Sons, set in an American suburb in the summer of 1947, examines the downfall of Joe Keller, a wealthy and patriotic arms manufacturer. During the war he was falsely accused of selling wonky parts to the US military which caused the deaths of 21 airmen. He blamed his partner for the blunder but
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End is the title chosen by David Eldridge for his new relationship drama. Clive Owen and Saskia Reeves star as Alfie and Julie, a pair of wildly successful creative types who live in a mansion near Highgate. Both are 59. Alfie is a retired DJ who made a fortune touring the world at the height
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The Hunger Games is based on a 2008 novel about a despotic regime where brainwashed citizens are entertained with televised duels between teenagers. Not a bad idea. We go behind the scenes and watch Katniss (Mia Carragher) being selected to fight Peeta (Euan Garrett) who secretly adores her. As soon as the plot starts, it
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Apparently it’s easy to make money on YouTube by teaching a course in your specialism. Mine is having no friends. And I share my aversion to humanity with a number of very distinguished names. Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Emily Dickinson and Howard Hughes were all solitary creatures who didn’t allow social frippery to dilute the
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Othello directed by Tom Morris opens with a stately display of scarlet costumes and gilded doorways arranged against a backdrop of black nothingness. This is Venice at night with no hint of sea or sunshine. Crimson-robed senators gather to discuss Othello’s alleged abduction of Brabantio’s daughter. And here he comes, David Harewood as the Moor,
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Alan Hollinghurst’s The Line of Beauty has been turned into a stage show directed by Michael Grandage. We’re in the early 1980s and Nick has just left Oxford with a literature degree. He lodges with his wealthy friend, Toby Fedden, in their family home and he offers to keep an eye on Toby’s troubled sister,
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The Assembled Parties, by Richard Greenberg, is a rich, warm family comedy that received three Tony nominations in 2013 following its New York première. Hampstead has taken a slight risk with this revival. The cryptic title doesn’t suggest an easygoing drama full of excellent jokes. The Yiddish slang may be unfamiliar to English ears, and
