Lloyd Evans is The Spectator's sketch-writer and theatre critic
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New year. New parliament. New speaker of the House of Commons. The change was palpable immediately. Former speaker John Bercow found it impossible to say nothing even when he had nothing to say, which was most of the time. His successor Lindsay Hoyle has the contrary virtue of terseness. He got through the session without
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Lily Allen. Lights! Camera! Hanky! It’s been a vintage year for Twitter’s comedy genius. The needy pub-bore grumblings of Tony Blair. Ditto John Major. Ant and Dec. Even after the drunken prang it’s impossible to tell them apart. The panicky new jargon of weather forecasters, (old version in brackets). Flood warning. (Drizzle). Drought warning. (Drizzle
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I’ve joined the Black Panthers. At least I think I have. I took part in an induction ceremony at the start of Messiah at Stratford Circus. ‘Stand up,’ said the actor Shaq B. Grant to the predominantly white crowd. ‘Raise your right fist and repeat after me: “I am a revolutionary.”’ Everyone obeyed and chanted
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The Christmas election has unfolded like a series of mini-dramas from panto, Dickens and other popular classics. Boris has come across as a Dick Whittington figure, already twice mayor of London, and hoping to establish his seat in the capital on a more permanent footing. Jeremy Corbyn resembles Mother Goose flinging sugary treats at gullible
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A is for Alliance. All across the country voting pacts and tactical deals are being fixed. These arrangements are helpful to cash-strapped smaller parties who can save money and present their thrift as a statesmanlike decision to ‘withdraw for the good of the country.’ For activists, voting pacts may be problematic. The deals rely heavily
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Oh my God. The Nazis have invaded the Arcola Theatre. Norwegian novelist Knut Hamsen won the Nobel Prize in 1920 and later became such an ardent fan of Hitler that he sent his Nobel gong to Goebbels as a token of his admiration. The Arcola admits these demerits in the programme notes. What it overlooks
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The history plays are different. In dramas like Othello, Hamlet and Much Ado, Shakespeare laid out the plot with great clarity because the stories were new, or newish, to his audiences. But Richard III belonged to the recent past. The wonky monarch’s death predated the play’s debut by just over a century, so Richard’s era
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Dear Evan Hansen, by Steven Levenson, opens as a standard American teen-angst musical. Evan is a sweaty geek with a crush on Zoe Murphy whose rebellious brother, Connor, is so disturbed that he styles his hair to suggest ‘school-shooter chic’. Evan tries to befriend Connor but gets shoved to the ground. Then, a bombshell. Connor
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When the RSC does modern drama it usually lays on an ultra-worthy yarn with a huge cast, dozens of fancy costumes and a three-hour running time. Miraculously, its new co-production with the Arcola avoids these faults and delivers a terse, gripping 75-minute documentary drama based on the prison diary of Turkish journalist, Can Dundar. In
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Hats off to Newsnight. BBC 2’s flagship political show bagged itself an almighty royal scoop. Emily Maitlis was given an hour to quiz Prince Andrew about his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex-offender who was found dead in his jail cell in August. The first bombshell of the night was the news that months
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The Antipodes, by the acclaimed dramatist Annie Baker, is set in a Hollywood writers’ room. Seven hired scribblers are brainstorming a new animated feature under the direction of a mysterious, bearded multimillionaire, Sandy, who seems thoroughly bored with the movie-making process. The script is in its early stages and Sandy decrees that the central character
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The Royal Court is the theatre’s answer to Islamic State, a conspiracy of nihilists fascinated with death, supported by groups of self-flagellating puritans, and committed to inflicting pain on all who stray into its orbit. The latest fatwa from Sloane Square concerns the imminent demise of the Welsh language — an emergency for which there
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Little Britain is a sketch-show whose cast of grotesque characters give audiences permission to laugh at obesity, disability, cross-dressing and a host of other human frailties. The creators Matt Lucas and David Walliams on Thursday night delivered a one-off special about Brexit for Radio 4. ‘Little Brexit’ opened with the show’s narrator, Tom Baker, using
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No power on earth can stop Lungs from becoming an international hit. Duncan Macmillan’s slick two-handed comedy reunites Matt Smith and Claire Foy from The Crown. It’s short (90 mins), it has a minimalist set (‘arty’), and it makes no intellectual demands on the crowd (phew!). Best of all, it parrots all the ecological prejudices
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John Bercow, at his last ever PMQs, heard tributes from all sides of the house. ‘Best speaker I’ve seen,’ said veteran Ronnie Campbell. ‘You have stood up for democracy,’ oozed the SNP’s Ian Blackford. Tory Nigel Evans: ‘No one has done more to promote LGBT rights than you. I salute you.’ And he dipped his
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Athol Fugard likes to dump his characters in settings with no dramatic thrust or tension. A prison yard is a favourite. He specialises in bored, talkative characters who squirt the time away swapping memories and indulging in bursts of creative play-acting. It’s dull to watch but good fun to perform. Thesps love to step out
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It was a semi-victory. A partial triumph. A success with many strings attached. Yesterday the House finally approved a Brexit deal but prevented itself from passing it into law. Today Boris took half a lap of honour at PMQs. He was keen to trumpet his achievement. ‘It’s remarkable that so many Members were able to
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Parliament Square was rammed by lunchtime on Saturday. Whistles tooted. Blue flags fluttered in the breeze. An entrepreneur outside Westminster tube station was selling ‘Dump on Trump’ loo paper for £3 a roll. Many Remainers were draped in EU flags. Others wore floppy azure berets bejazzled with golden stars. A vegetarian chef doled out plates of
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The Man in the White Suit, famously, is a yarn about yarn. A brilliant young boffin stumbles across an everlasting polymer thread but when he tries to profit from his discovery he faces unexpected ruin. There are only three beats in the story — breakthrough, triumph, disaster — so it needs to be elaborated with
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Is Boris safe in Uxbridge? The Lib Dems have an eye on the Prime Minister’s 5000 vote majority and their candidate, Dr Liz Evenden-Kenyon, hopes to dislodge him at the general election. But she needs help. With the support of a new formation, Renew UK, she plans to ‘kick Johnson out of Uxbridge’. I went
