Lloyd Evans is The Spectator's sketch-writer and theatre critic
Some things are done well in the Globe’s new Julius Caesar. The assassination is a thrilling spectacle. Ketchup pouches concealed inside Caesar’s costume explode bloodily with each dagger blow and the conspirators are doused in dripping scarlet gore. During the assault, Caesar fights back and very nearly survives. Highly realistic. Afterwards, his statue is toppled
The House of Shades is a state-of-the nation play that covers the past six decades of grinding poverty in Nottingham. The action opens in 1965 with a corpse being sponged down by an amusingly saucy mortician. The dead man, Alistair, sits up and walks into the kitchen where he natters with his prickly, loud-mouthed wife,
PMQs was a warm-up today. The main event was Boris’s response to Sue Gray’s partygate report. Boris’s body language was sheepish as he sat through PMQs. He hunched in his place, head down, legs crossed, his meaty arms enclosing his ribs in what psychologists call a ‘self-comforting’ gesture. He was giving himself a bear-hug. Sir
Last night’s must-see TV show was Bury Boris – the Movie. In anticipation, the BBC released a trailer for a Panorama edition about parties in Downing Street. It’s a thrilling two-minute watch. It opens with a shot of a dodgy skinhead in a sleazy overcoat being released from Wormwood Scrubs. Or is it an international
Hampstead’s latest play is a knotty rape drama by Naomi Wallace set in Kentucky. Four teenagers with weird names meet in a hired basement. Hoke and Frayne are boys. Jude is a girl whose younger brother, Acton, gets bullied at school. Their chat is aggressive, cynical and funny. Jude boasts that she’s already lost her
It’s half-time in the Beergate versus Partygate contest. The current score, nil-nil, would suit both leaders perfectly. The economy dominated PMQs. Unemployment, boasted Boris, has reached its lowest level since 1974. Great news. But inflation is at a peak last seen in 1982. Slow-footed Sir Keir didn’t mention that. He pushed Labour’s pet-project, a windfall
‘I fink I doan luv yew any maw.’ A marital bust-up drama at the National Theatre opens with a whining Cockney, Maggie, telling her City whizzkid husband Gary that their relationship is over. Gary and Maggie are aspriring underclass types who’ve achieved bourgeois prosperity: John Lewis kitchen, vintage wine rack and a ceramics collection. They
The title of the Donmar’s new effort, Marys Seacole, appears to be a misprint and that makes the reader look twice. Good marketing. The show is a blend of Spike Milligan-esque sketches and indignant speeches about race but it starts as a straightforward historical narrative. Mary Seacole enters in Victorian garb and introduces herself as
He sits alone at a huge glossy desk like a James Bond baddie in his lair. The viewer expects Daniel Craig to burst in and demand the nuclear codes at gunpoint. This is Piers Morgan in Uncensored, his new flagship show for Talk TV which launched last Monday. The week began with a storm of
The Corn is Green by Emlyn Williams is a sociology essay written in 1938 about a prickly tyrant, Miss Moffat, who tries to civilise Wales by setting up a village school where sooty-faced miners are taught to read and write. Miss Moffat is an unmarried English layabout who has money to burn and time on
That was a barmy idea. Sir Keir Starmer led on macroeconomics at PMQs and attacked the government over its economic failures. But next week’s elections are for local authorities which have no influence over the national coffers. It’s as if Sir Keir wanted to change the subject and talk about anything other than Labour’s ability
What’s up with Lindsay Hoyle? On Monday, the Speaker opened the afternoon session of parliament with a statement about the puerile gossip surrounding Angela Rayner. He called the story in the Mail on Sunday, ‘misogynistic’ and ‘offensive to women in parliament.’ Such tasteless yarns, he went on, ‘can only deter women who might be considering
Trump is said to be a gift for bad satirists and a problem for good ones. He dominates Mike Bartlett’s new play, The 47th, which predicts that the 2024 presidential election will be a run-off between Trump and Kamala Harris. Bertie Carvel’s Orangeman is a subtle and highly amusing spoof that never descends into exaggeration
This was it. Boris’s career was on the line at PMQs. Would he finally beat cake-gate or would he get hit in the face with a huge cream pie? As soon as Sir Keir mentioned cake, Boris brushed it aside. ‘I think he’s in a Dr Who time-warp,’ he said. ‘We had this conversation yesterday.’ He
The Fever Syndrome is a dramatised lecture set in a New York brownstone occupied by the super-brainy Myers family. The old man, Prof. Richard, is an IVF expert whose daughter, Dot, wants to defrost her embryos and have a second baby. Cue lots of chat about in vitro technology in the 1970s. Dot’s daughter, Lily,
‘I was very busy. The party was crap. I’m sorry you’re angry. Now leave me alone.’ That was the gist of Boris’s statement about being fined for attending an event in Downing Street to celebrate his birthday. A flustered-looking Prime Minister delivered the Partygate Declaration in a small, wood-panelled room with a nicely-lit painting behind
The NT has rejigged Hamlet for 8- to 12-year-old children. It’s a decent attempt to cover the highlights at a sprint lasting just 90 minutes. A few gripes. The medieval setting is unclear because the courtiers wear matching red and yellow suits, like Butlins entertainers. Why not military costumes? British kids are used to seeing
It’s good of Nicholas Hytner to let Londoners see David Hare’s new play before it travels to Broadway where it belongs. Few Brits will know the subject, Robert Moses, an urban planner of the 1920s who built the roads and bridges that gave New Yorkers access to seaside resorts in Long Island. This is a
Covid is ancient history. And Ukraine has ceased to dominate PMQs. Today, ideological warfare between the parties broke out again. The old politics is back. Sir Keir Starmer accused the Chancellor of fibbing during last week’s bogus budget. Tax hikes had been camouflaged as tax cuts. Boris denied this and praised his Chancellor for delivering
Cock was written by Mike Bartlett in 2009 while he was in Mexico at a drama conference. The title suggests a cockpit where three characters compete for sexual dominance. W, meaning Woman, is a childminder attracted to a gay man, John, who is thick but handsome and deeply involved with M, or Man. W adores
