Lloyd Evans

Lloyd Evans

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

PMQs: Keir Starmer is too clever by half

Sir Keir’s approach to PMQs is so brilliant it might be rather foolish. He shows up each Wednesday as if he were attending a particularly complicated fraud trial, full of unique and intriguing features, which will one day furnish material for a lecture at Inner Temple. It’s super-technical. It makes your brain itch. And anyone

PMQs: Starmer flaps as Boris adapts

Well that was different. Boris arrived at PMQs as if he were modelling for one of his cartoons. The strands of his famous hairdo were standing up like the quills of a cornered hedgehog. Had he just placed his thumb in a power-socket to get an energy boost? Sir Keir was waiting for him, inscrutable,

Starmer was firing blanks at PMQs

It was another ‘worst week ever’ for Boris. The highlight being his successful bid to make mincemeat of himself by garbling his own lockdown rules at a press conference. At PMQs, he presented an open target and the Labour leader struck early with a highly specific question: Why has Luton emerged from lockdown when other

Inside the anti-lockdown rally

The anti-lockdown rally at Trafalgar Square was organised by Save Our Rights UK. This embryonic organisation is so new that its website only has a single page. And it seems inexperienced at staging large demos. The amplification on a windy day needed to be cranked up to the max but the sound was inaudible from

Starmer’s brain is Boris’s secret weapon at PMQs

Martial law was declared yesterday. And today Boris was expected to arrive at PMQs dressed in jackboots, an olive tunic and wraparound shades, with a Glock 18 machine-pistol tucked into his holster. Instead he wore a plain business suit. Perhaps he wanted to give his people a friendlier impression of their overlord. He seemed unusually jovial and upbeat

PMQs exposed Angela Rayner’s two major faults

Sir Keir Starmer did a Greta at PMQs today. Without their leader, Labour invited Angela Rayner to duff up Boris in public. On her feet she announced that this would be ‘the Battle of Britain’. And she believed that ‘the whole country’ would be watching.  It was more like a game of hop-scotch between two flirtatious teenagers. The air

What I learnt as an Oxford vaccine guinea pig

Was the Oxford vaccine trial paused? Mine wasn’t. I signed up for it last week, in the 55 to 69-year-old category, and I was told on Friday that I should continue posting my swabs and attending follow-up appointments.  My friends were keen to tell me I was ‘utterly mad’ to join a trial. But I

An investor should snap up this weepy musical: Sleepless reviewed

It has roughly the same proportions as Shakespeare’s Globe. The Roman Theatre in Verulamium (St Albans) is an atmospheric ruin with low flint walls, a banked rampart and a single stone column. Historians estimate that the circular space, measuring about 40 yards in diameter, would have enabled 7,000 spectators to watch plays, gladiatorial contests and

PMQs: Starmer’s slip-up lets Boris off the hook

After last week’s shambles, Boris could barely have performed worse at PMQs today. Sir Keir Starmer began with a horror-story endured by two parents in London.  They needed an urgent Covid test for a feverish toddler but were told that nothing was available in the capital. Go to Romford, was the advice. Then they were

Why is Nish Kumar so angry?

The rise of the political satirist Nish Kumar baffles many. If you Google ‘Nish Kumar quotes’ you find a list of the ten witticisms most widely shared by his fans. ‘My parents wanted me to be a lawyer.’ ‘I have a strange nose: it’s big and weird.’ ‘When I am on stage I am often