Lloyd Evans is The Spectator's sketch-writer and theatre critic
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Origin of Species Arcola Seize the Day Tricycle Oh, not again. Yup, I’m afraid so. I had no wish to return to the vexed topic of Darwinism but a much-praised show in east London tempted me out on a frosty night to the Arcola theatre. Bryony Lavery’s new play has a storyline that’s as nutty
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Very funny guy, John O’Farrell. Very funny guy, John O’Farrell. His columns are a hoot and his excellent memoir, Things Can Only Get Better, turned me temporarily into an insomniac. His latest book, a facetious history of the last 60 years, lacks the cohesion of his memoir and the concentrated force of his columns. Because
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Cameron had little choice today. At PMQs he played it sober and he played it statesmanlike. The Afghan issue, which is close to becoming a crisis, dominated the session. Both main party leaders were standing shoulder to shoulder, and Cameron used five of his six questions asking the same thing. ‘Are we both right in
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What Fatima Did… Hampstead Mrs Klein Almeida What Fatima Did… is billed as a play. Really, it’s a fugue, a variation on a theme, a crude and boisterous tone poem. The plot is deliberately small-scale. A gang of fun-loving inner-city sixth-formers are shocked to learn that one of their pals, Fatima, has forsaken Western values
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Does Cameron fluff PMQs on purpose? Some theorists say he lets Brown off the hook in order to keep the weakling in his job. I don’t buy that. A politician’s natural instinct makes him want to win every session, every question. But Brown sometimes sneaks through intact because Dave rarely varies his tactics. He doesn’t
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The Rise and Fall of Little Voice Vaudeville Life is a Dream Donmar Midnight in a northern slum. The pubs have closed and a boozy, blousy, past-it single mum is trying to seduce a handsome young talent scout. He deters her advances until he hears her teenage daughter, alone in her bedroom, singing jazz classics.
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Mobs of howling protestors outside the BBC. Police cordons being smashed by anti-fascists. News clips of upended students being dragged across the foyer of the TV Centre shouting, ‘Shame on you for defending fascism.’ It was chaotic, it was emotive, it was anarchic. But, ultimately, it was a marvellously British occasion. Thanks to the BNP,
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A poor showing by Dave today. All he managed was a spot of outmoded Labour-bashing and a biscuit joke that didn’t exactly take the biscuit. He attacked the PM over the postal strike and quoted a minister of state admitting that union militants had been emboldened by the government’s indecision over part-privatisation. ‘This trade union,’
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Comedians Lyric, Hammersmith Liberace, Live from Heaven Leicester Square Theatre They gushed, they cheered, they purred, they sighed. When a young Richard Eyre read Trevor Griffiths’s new play Comedians in 1975 he prounounced it ‘great’ on the spot. ‘Trev,’ said Rich, ‘you’re knocking on Chekhov’s door.’ Eyre’s production was picked up by an equally thrilled
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The Power of Yes Lyttelton My Real War 1914–? Trafalgar Studios Here comes Hare. And he’s got the answer to the credit crunch. His energetic, well-researched and richly informative new work opens with an actor playing the writer himself (curious frown, Hush Puppies) as he sets out to discover why the markets jumped off a
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Poppy day came early to Westminster today. Brown began proceedings by reciting the names of the 37 men killed in Afghanistan over the summer. This took two minutes. The house was silent, funereal, almost awe-struck with the solemnity of the occasion. Brown looked like a man deeply moved by personal grief as he worked his
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Michael Palin is the meekest, mildest and nicest of the Pythons. The latest chunk of his diaries traces his attempt during the 1980s to break away from his wacky colleagues and forge a film-making career in his own right. The title, Halfway to Hollywood, reflects his modest, circumspect nature. We first meet the millionaire filmstar
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Clever in its lack of cleverness. Cameron’s performance today was shrewd and unexciting, a speech of nursery-school simplicity. Large bland ideas, plain language. No detail. This was certainly no masterpiece. It didn’t have to be. Cameron’s in a holding pattern. Keep circling and he’ll land safely. Before he arrived, William Hague frustrated the eager delegates
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Breakfast at Tiffany’s Theatre Royal Haymarket Inherit the Wind Old Vic ‘What do you want?’ a film producer asks Holly Golightly about half an hour into Breakfast at Tiffany’s. ‘I don’t know,’ she says, ‘but if I find out I’ll tell you first.’ At this point my hopes for the evening collapsed. Rule one of
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Mother Courage and Her Children Olivier Speaking in Tongues Duke of York’s Mother Courage, Brecht’s saga of conflict and suffering, is set during the Thirty Years’ War. The title character is a maternal archetype who ekes out a perilous existence selling provisions to the warring factions and chasing off the recruiting sergeants who want to
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For Brown this was a doddle. He couldn’t fluff it. Expectations have sunk so low that all he had to do today was show up, try not to look too knackered, spout a few revivalist platitudes and make sure he didn’t fall over. The rebellion has stalled, the plotters are paralysed. Those who criticise won’t
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The Shawshank Redemption Wyndham’s Othello Trafalgar Studios All change at Wyndham’s. The wayward sophistication and creative adventure of Michael Grandage’s first West End season has drawn to a close and been replaced by a karaoke version of The Shawshank Redemption. Smart move. Cameron Mackintosh, the theatre’s owner, must be hoping that this stale piece of
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What a week for the LibDems. The conference began, as always, with the sound newspapers being arranged across sleeping faces as the mass snore-in started. A few hopeful souls wondered if the LibDems might finally tell us exactly what their party is for. And LibDems went about their usual business of behaving like some cuddly
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Punk Rock Lyric Hammersmith Judgment Day Almeida In rolls another bandwagon. And who’s that on board? It’s Simon Stephens, the playwright and panic profiteer, who likes to cadge a ride from any passing controversy. His latest play is about a teenage psycho who enacts a gory shoot-out at his local school. What a strange choice.
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There’s a great post on the Telegraph website highlighting 50 things the internet is killing off. Hand-writing, desk diaries, things like that. But what about those precious activities and institutions the internet was supposed to destroy and hasn’t? Here are six to get the ball rolling: Bookshops Each time I pass a bookshop, especially the
