Lloyd Evans is The Spectator's sketch-writer and theatre critic
Therapy seems to be the defining theme of this year’s Edinburgh festival. Many performers are saddled with personal demons or anxieties which they want to alleviate by yelling about them in front of a paying audience. Professor Tanya Byron puts it like this in the Pleasance brochure: ‘Therapy is where art and story-telling combine.’ This
Wes Streeting bounds onto the stage for a conversation with Matthew Stadlen (deputising for Iain Dale) at the Edinburgh festival. Labour’s new health secretary wears grey slacks, white trainers and an open-necked shirt. He hasn’t found time to put on a jacket or tie. ‘I came literally from the airport in my holiday get-up,’ he
Slave Play is a series of hoaxes. The producers announced that ‘Black Out’ performances would be reserved for ‘black-identifying’ playgoers but the ticketing system is colour-blind and these so-called ‘segregated’ shows were attended by audiences of all ethnicities. The PR gambit generated lots of free publicity, but these stunts don’t always translate into ticket sales.
Our subsidised theatres often import shows from the US without asking whether our theatrical tastes align with America’s. The latest arrival, The Hot Wing King, is a Pulitzer Prize-winning play about unhealthy eating. The production opens in a luxury house in Memphis, occupied, rather strangely, by four gay men who dress gracelessly in cheap, flashy
Are we going to war? The first PMQs since the election was like a military briefing between the Tory chief and the new prime minister. Rishi Sunak, now opposition leader, began with a few standard noises about Ukraine’s need for more weapons. He urged Sir Keir Starmer to ask the Germans to send ‘long-range missiles’
Visit From An Unknown Woman, adapted by Christopher Hampton from a short story by Stefan Zweig, opens like an episode of Seinfeld. A playboy writer enjoys a fling with a black-clad beauty – but when he kisses her goodbye, he can’t remember her name. It feels like a set-up for a gag, but the script
Friends in Calais invited me to their baby’s birthday party. He’s a year old. They suggested an overnight stay and I planned to reach France by about mid-afternoon and have a stroll, visit the sights, buy a bit of tat for the nipper and a litre of plonk for the proud parents. Clouds of sweet
Alma Mater is a topical melodrama set on a university campus. The new principal, Jo, (amusingly played by Justine Mitchell) is a radical feminist who recalls the bitter struggles of the 1980s when she strove to put women on an equal footing with men. Her task now is to address the college’s reputation for ‘binge-drinking,
Yosser Hughes is regarded as a national treasure. He first appeared in 1982 in Alan Bleasdale’s TV drama, Boys from the Blackstuff, which followed a crew of Liverpool workers who lay tarmac (‘black stuff’) for a living. When their contract expires the lads are left shocked and helpless even though job security is not a
The Constituent is a larky show about violence against female politicians. A strange subject for a comedy. Anna Maxwell Martin plays a vapid but well-meaning MP, Monica, who receives unwelcome attention from a sinister dropout, named Alec (played by James Corden). Alec’s backstory is quite a puzzle. He used to work as an MI6 spymaster
Some Demon by Laura Waldren is a gem of a play that examines the techniques of manipulation and bullying practised by shrinks on anorexics. The setting is an NHS referral unit where Sam, an 18-year-old philosophy student, arrives with a minor eating disorder. Like every patient, Sam is told that her personality is immersed in
Marie Curie: The Musical is a history lesson combined with a chemistry seminar and it’s aimed at indignant feminists who want to agonise afresh over the wrongs of yesteryear. We meet the young Marie, wearing her signature widow’s frock, as she speeds towards Paris on a train from Poland. The essential materials of this musical
A clash of the razor-blades. That’s how it started. Nick Robinson’s grey jowls were dotted with stubble as he sat down to quiz the PM on BBC One. Rishi Sunak had shaved. Robinson hadn’t bothered. And that mismatch set the tone for their bad-tempered interview. Robinson played the irritable major-general going over the blunders of
Every Hamlet is a failure. It always feels that way because playgoers tend to compare what they’re seeing with a superior version that exists only in their heads. And since disappointment is inevitable, it’s worth celebrating the successful novelties in Eddie Izzard’s solo version. He makes some valuable breakthroughs, especially in the comedic sections. Izzard
Romeo & Juliet is Shakespeare with power cuts. The lighting in Jamie Lloyd’s cheerless production keeps shutting down, perhaps deliberately. The show stars Tom Holland (also known as Spider-Man) whose home in Verona resembles a sound studio that’s just been burgled. There’s nothing in it apart from a few microphones on metal stands. He and
After nearly 40 years, Withnail has arrived on stage. Sean Foley directs Bruce Robinson’s adaptation, which starts with a live rock-band thumping out a few 1960s hits. The musicians take cameo roles as maids and coppers. The show needs a larger cast especially for the tea-room scene – ‘We want the finest wines available to
Every year I’m summoned to a gathering which I strive to avoid. My first cousin, who loves a boozy party, assembles the extended clan in an Italian restaurant for a convivial lunch. I fear that my list of excuses – ‘back pain’, ‘gout’, ‘baptism in Scotland’, ‘last-minute undercover journalism assignment’ – is wearing a bit
The party leaders conformed to type at PMQs. Rishi Sunak declared that Britain is experiencing an economic boom. ‘Inflation is back to normal,’ he announced about six times. It felt like about 60. Sir Keir Starmer reminded us that he used to run the CPS which is one of his favourite boasts. But it was
Fawlty Towers at the Apollo may be the best museum piece you’ll ever see. A full-length play has been carved out of three episodes: ‘The Hotel Inspectors’, ‘The Germans’, and ‘Communication Problems’ in which the deaf guest, Mrs Richards, made a nuisance of herself by refusing to switch on her hearing aid in case the
Bad news for Rishi Sunak at PMQs. Caught out by Sir Keir Starmer, he handed Labour a wonderful soundbite for the next election: Rishi, the crimewave king. Sir Keir opened by calling Rishi a ‘jumped-up milk-monitor.’ He mocked his ‘seventh relaunch in 18 months’ and called it a war against ‘that gravest of threats, colourful
