Lloyd Evans is The Spectator's sketch-writer and theatre critic
It looked exciting on paper. A massive defeat for the government. Their flagship policy not just sunk but blown to smithereens. And a Prime Minister facing a no-confidence motion for the first time since Sunny Jim Callaghan was unseated in 1979 by Margaret Thatcher. And yet PMQs lacked sparkle. The mood was footsore, hungover, whimpering with
Sweat, set in the Pennsylvanian rust belt, looks at a blue-collar community threatened by a factory closure. The script uses the flashback device. Scene One informs us that two lads were found guilty of doing a Bad Thing eight years ago. What Bad Thing? The author won’t tell us because the play needs suspense but
PMQs began with tributes to the late Paddy Ashdown. The philandering man-of-action was the closest thing the Liberal Democrats ever got to James Bond. And though he was often ridiculed by MPs as a self-important windbag, today they hailed him as one of the greats. In this respect the House truly reflected the people. Death
It starts with a balding weirdo locked in a cupboard ranting about mythological abstractions. This is Dominic Cummings, the key figure in Channel 4’s Brexit film, The Uncivil War, and the opening scene is designed to overcome a major hurdle. How to make the audience – half of whom loathe Brexit – feel sympathy for
‘I try to interpret the most generous version of somebody’s actions,’ says the dramatist James Graham. This rare ability to create open and sympathetic characters has turned the 36-year-old into our foremost political playwright. His breakthrough work, This House, chronicled the terminal decline of James Callaghan’s premiership between 1976 and 1979. Rather than focusing on
The Tell-Tale Heart is based on a teeny-weeny short story by Edgar Allan Poe. The full text appears in the programme notes. Here’s the gist. A madman kills his landlord and is haunted by a ghostly heartbeat that prompts him to confess his crime. Anthony Neilson’s adaptation turns both characters into women and gives away
The best way to avoid Brexit bust-ups is to pretend that Remain folk are right about virtually everything. This may not be easy. A relative arguing for a second referendum will probably say, ‘in a democracy people can change their minds.’ To which the obvious reply is, ‘So change your mind and accept the verdict
Hecklers had a great day at PMQs. Mike Amesbury opened proceedings by wishing everyone a Merry Christmas. ‘Very generous,’ said a female cynic. The Speaker joined in the barracking and nuisance-mongering. Several times he halted MPs and ruined their flow in order to scold the house for noisiness. He even interrupted his own interruptions by
Sam Shepard was perhaps the gloomiest playwright ever to spill his guts into a typewriter. The popularity of his work must owe itself to some deep grudge nursed by America’s elite against the redneck states. True West is a standard Shepard ordeal: a pair of damaged, inadequate, bitter, loveless white males are cudgelling each other
Bad 24 hours for Mrs May. A last-minute Christmas shopping-trip to Europe yielded no bargains whatever, even though she had £39bn to splurge on an extension to her premiership. Back home she found a conspiracy of seditious Tories baying for her resignation. The Queen of Narnia is a masochist. She finds punishment stimulating, and perhaps
One of the biggest stars of the 1970s was the professional lard-bucket Mick McManus, who plied his trade as an all-in wrestler. The sport was televised to millions. The parents of the playwright Michael McManus must have calculated that by giving their child the same name as ‘The Dulwich Destroyer’ they would subtly galvanise his
Huge ructions at PMQs. Ian Blackford, of the SNP, said Mrs May had been ‘misleading the house inadvertently or otherwise’ over her EU agreement. Instant panic. Roars of outrage at the suggestion that the prime minister had lied. Mr Speaker snapped to his feet. The house paused while he delivered his ruling which centred on
I know nothing about Patricia Highsmith. The acclaimed American author wrote the kind of Sunday-night crime thrillers that put me to sleep. Her best-known creation, the suave psychopath Thomas Ripley, has spawned a number of films that I’ve carefully avoided. But ignorance is an ideal starting point for Switzerland, by Joanna Murray-Smith, a brilliantly nasty
As their time draws near, doomed leaders like to have a final go on the train-set. Mrs May entered this state of self-absorbed hyperactivity about a week ago when she started to push and yank at all the levers of power in Downing Street. Honours were handed out. Jets were commissioned to zoom her between
Michelle Terry, chatelaine of the Globe, wants to put an end to penis-led Shakespeare by casting women in roles intended for men. To showcase her war on male cronyism she presents a version of Macbeth starring Paul Ready as the king. She plays the queen. In real life the two are married. This must be
Amber Rudd, a washed-up ex-minister last week, is the de facto Brexit secretary today. She revealed her loyalties this morning when she told an interviewer that parliament wouldn’t approve a no-deal agreement. And with no deal off the table, Brussels can dictate terms. Congrats Amber. The Légion d’honneur is on its way. And a peerage
Pinter Three appeals to opposite poles of the play-going spectrum. The birdbrains like me will enjoy the music-hall sketches while the goatee-strokers will have fun pretending that Pinter’s deadly earnest memory plays are worth seeing. Watching the first piece, Landscape, is like receiving a jigsaw puzzle in instalments. Two characters, Duff and Beth, speak to
Today’s choice for ‘A Book At Bedtime’ is the government’s draft Brexit deal. At daybreak the masterpiece was being referred to as a 500-page tome but its estimated length has now risen to 540 pp. That explains why the PM looked so calm and unruffled and at PMQs. No MP is going to risk brain
Lauren Gunderson’s play I and You opens in the scruffy bedroom of 17-year-old Caroline. Lonely, beautiful and furious, she’s unable to participate in school life owing to a chronic liver problem. Into her hideaway barges Anthony, a handsome geek, who wants her to help with a Walt Whitman project. Caroline tries to chase him off
In the year since it opened, the Bridge has given us the following: a harmless Karl Marx comedy by Richard Bean; a modern-dress Julius Caesar with Ben Whishaw playing Brutus as a frowning existentialist; a dreary rustic soap opera written by newcomer Barney Norris; and an enjoyable NHS romp by Alan Bennett. Not quite the
