Lloyd Evans

Lloyd Evans

Lloyd Evans is The Spectator's sketch-writer and theatre critic

Boris will be delighted with Dominic Cummings’s evidence

Here it was. At long last. Dominic Cummings in the flesh at the parliamentary select committee. He was dressed in the same immaculate white cotton shirt that he sported for his ‘agony in the garden’ appearance in Downing Street a year ago. But this time he wasn’t in the dock. He was like a school

A last hurrah for the Zoom play

Lockdown is about to end but some theatres are gripped by cabin fever and want to explore the two new formats created by the pandemic. One is the Zoom play with multiple actors, the other is the sequence of filmed soliloquys linked by a theme or storyline. Tim Crouch has directed a Zoom version of

Sir Keir was defeated by his own strategy at PMQs

The great thing about being trashed in the polls is that the tiniest improvement looks like a triumphant comeback. At PMQs the Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer, needed to do some minor damage to Boris’s armour. The teeniest dent could be spun as a glorious revival. But Sir Keir was defeated by his own strategy.

Clever, funny and fearless: Good Girl at Soho Theatre online reviewed

A new work by Alan Bennett features in Still Life, a medley of five ‘untold stories’ from Nottingham Playhouse. The dramas were filmed during lockdown. Before the Bennett première, there’s a monologue by a wittering granny complaining about the price of cereal in a deserted food bank. Then, a banality-crammed slice of jabber between two

Xenophobic twaddle: Bush Theatre’s 2036 reviewed

The Bush Theatre’s new strand, 2036, opens with a monologue, Pawn, which takes its name from the most downtrodden piece on the chessboard. The speaker, Jordan, is an amiable dimwit of mixed Trinidadian and South African heritage whose mother explains his background to him like a condescending anthropologist: ‘Trinidad and South Africa are countries with

Boris Johnson’s Krakatoa moment

He blew his stack. His mop almost came loose from his scalp. He wasn’t just jabbing his forefinger and tossing his arms around, he was throwing combinations and swinging at punch-bags. He almost did the Ali shuffle. At PMQs Boris delivered an amazingly combative performance. Last week he smouldered like Etna. This week the summit

Why do theatres think audiences want Covid-related drama?

Hats off to the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond. They’ve discovered a new form of racism. Some people say we have enough ethnic division already but in south-west London they’re gagging for more apparently. A new play, Prodigal, examines the prejudice endured by a Ugandan chap whose mother moved to London when he was a

Boris’s mask slipped at PMQs

Oh dear. Those texts. A bit awkward isn’t it? At PMQs, Sir Keir quizzed Boris about the exchanges between James Dyson and the PM which have been leaked by a saboteur. Boris was rattled. The texts reveal a side of his nature that he wants kept secret. The smug and rather puerile grandee luxuriating in

Theatre’s final taboo: fun

How will the theatre look after lockdown? A clue emerges in a statement made by Guy Jones, the literary associate of the Orange Tree in Richmond. ‘The victims of this year are many. Homelessness is on the rise, loneliness is deadly, the monster of racism lurks in every-day interactions… and many of the inequalities we

Starmer has ‘dodgy Dave’ to thank for his best ever PMQs

‘Keir today, gone tomorrow.’ The whisper before Easter was that Labour’s troubled leader might not survive until the next election but the spectre of Tory sleaze – which felled John Major’s government – has come to the rescue. Sir Keir started PMQs by alluding to David Cameron’s freelance activities for Greensill Capital. ‘Are the current

A fantastic online show of Euripides’s take on Helen of Troy

Everyone knows Helen of Troy. The feckless sex popsicle betrayed her husband, Menelaus, and ran off with the dashing Paris, which triggered the ten-year Trojan war. The Greeks were victorious but after sacking the city they went straight home again. So what was the point? Euripides’s play Helen takes a radically different approach in this

Keir Starmer morphed into Ed Miliband at PMQs

Sir Keir Starmer will want to forget today’s PMQs. And fast. The Labour leader began with a strategic error. Instead of hounding the Prime Minister on a single issue he chose three unrelated topics: Covid, army numbers and steel production. Typical Sir Keir. Why use effective tactics when useless ones are available? To be fair,

PMQs was an unseemly scrap

It’s bizarre to see political enemies laying claim to the purest of motives when they’re fighting like dogs to extract political advantage from the week’s hottest issue. At PMQs were treated to the unseemly spectacle of party leaders using the appalling death of Sarah Everard for personal gain. Sir Keir Starmer called it, ‘a tragedy

Corbyn’s plan to revolutionise the mainstream media

Jeremy Corbyn is hitting the comeback trail. The former Labour leader made the keynote speech at this week’s Media Democracy Festival organised by the Media Reform Coalition. He began by citing his own journalistic credentials. ‘I produced 500 columns for the Morning Star.’ Then he turned to India where 250 million strikers are protesting against