Lloyd Evans is The Spectator's sketch-writer and theatre critic
England People Very Nice Olivier Toyer Arts It’s been a busy year for offence-junkies. Richard Bean’s new play has prompted anti-racism protests at the National. What for? The play is certainly racist in the narrow sense that it mocks the distinctions between races (or regions, for the most part, since Bean belongs to the same
Vintage PMQs today. A decent debate, good jokes and a clear winner. With Brown in America practising his lecture-circuit speech on Congress, his beloved colleague and would-be assassin, Hattie Harman stepped up. She made a sloppy start and forgot to mention yesterday’s massacre in Lahore. A sleek, well-briefed Hague used his first question to remind
Three Days of Rain Apollo This Isn’t Romance Soho Richly sophisticated and over-contrived. This is the glory and the failing of Richard Greenberg’s Three Days of Rain. But, first, hats off to a writer who expects his audience to be smart, clued-in and intellectually curious. Dimwits, stay in the bar, we’ll join you later. The
Woman in Mind Vaudeville On the Waterfront Theatre Royal, Haymarket The Stone; Seven Jewish Children Royal Court Blistering, searing, cracking, scorching. I’m describing the performances of Janie Dee and Stuart Fox in Woman in Mind, Alan Ayckbourn’s comedy about senile dementia. Smouldering, blazing, torrid, incandescent. There’s a few more. But a show can only take
A commanding performance from Cameron today. There were large cheers, and larger expectations, on the Tories benches as he stood up. His first words were an improvised response to the opening question, placed by Labour poodle Khalid Mahmood, demanding that ‘the allegations against Sir James Crosby must be investigated.’ ‘So,’ said Cameron, ‘they can even
Enjoy Gielgud Entertaining Mr Sloane Trafalgar Studio A View from the Bridge Duke of York’s How does he get away with it? The main target of Alan Bennett’s 1980 comedy Enjoy is disability. Ageing Connie has pre-senile dementia and her husband Wilf is partially paralysed and prone to blackouts. Their condemned terraced house is about
Steven Berkoff admits to Lloyd Evans that, despite his reputation, he’s not tough at all On the waterfront. This, literally, is where I meet Steven Berkoff to discuss his stage adaptation of the classic Fifties movie. Berkoff’s east London office is a sumptuous, spotlessly clean apartment with wraparound views of the grey-green Thames. He strolls
After a nifty performance last week, Dave displayed lots of sluggish footwork today. Everyone was desperate for him to nail Brown over his ‘British jobs for British workers’ gaffe but instead Dave opened by asking the PM to condemn international protectionism. An easy shot, safely dealt with by Brown. What was Dave playing at? The
Be Near Me Donmar Complicit Old Vic Here’s the odd thing about the Donmar, the country’s pre-eminent theatrical power-house. Its productions are nearly always stunning and rarely (very rarely) atrocious. They don’t do so-so. But here we have it, an OK sort of show done with tremendous affection and commitment but with numerous elementary flaws.
A wintry London night and the haunting note of the bagpipes summoned us to Burns supper at Boisdale of Belgravia. In the doorway Pipe Major Willie Cochrane paused for breath and shook my hand. ‘Are they giving you a nip of something later?’ I asked. ‘I’ve got one right there,’ he said, pointing to a
Today’s PMQs was both tedious and fascinating. Dave marched in with a two-pronged strategy. To force the PM to call the recession ‘a bust’ and accept personal responsibility for it. He knew Gordon would refuse to make either admission so he had a statistical counter-attack up his sleeve. He quoted the definition of an economic
A Midsummer Night’s Dream Novello Thriller — Live Lyric Too long. Too long. Way, way too long. Is it just me or is A Midsummer Night’s Dream twice the length it should be? No, it’s not just me. It’s everyone. It has to be. And I blame the movies. Billy Wilder reckoned a comedy should
Oliver! Drury Lane Roaring Trade Soho A show with an exclamation mark in the title has a lot of promises to fulfill. Oliver! opens on a magnificent note. The dark, silkily lit workhouse teems with the figures of stooped orphans who crawl up through the floorboards and march around the shadows like sad doomed little
Gordon spent Christmas learning the catechism from Peter Mandelson. Today we heard the result. And it sounded robotic. ‘Do nothing’ is his clockwork description of the Tories. ‘Real help’ is the mantra for Labour. The first question at PMQs came from a government stooge asking about loan guarantees. Gordon stood up and re-announced his scheme
Well Apollo Hit Me! The Life and Rhymes of Ian Dury Leicester Square In Blood: The Bacchae Arcola So what does the theatre critic make of the recession? No one’s asked me, actually, so here goes. Leaving aside the obsessive 24-hour media coverage, there’s little trace of it in the real world. Immunise your bonce
The Cordelia Dream Wilton’s Music Hall Sunset Boulevard Comedy Marina Carr is a writer of enormous distinction which isn’t quite the same as being a writer of enormous talent. She’s been given chairs by so many universities that she could probably open a furniture shop. However, a certain snippet of advice — don’t invite comparisons
Twelfth Night Wyndhams Loot Tricycle Another stunna from Michael Grandage. His production of Twelfth Night is an excellent and often beautiful frivolity and if you’re a fan of the play it’s a must-see event. I can’t stand the thing, I’m afraid, and even this fine production doesn’t mask the script’s shortcomings. The ploy involving Olivia’s
Was that PMQs? It felt more like the monthly meeting of a particularly soporific knitting circle. The last fixture before Christmas is usually full of mayhem and mischief but Gordon Brown is abroad this week taking his smirk on a tour of the east, so the understudies replaced the regular opponents. In the past Harriet
Mother Goose Hackney Empire Hamlet Novello God, I hate the panto season. Especially the reviews. You get some cynical, steely-hearted, acid-flinging critic who takes his two-year-old kid to a Christmas show for the first time and the old bruiser’s heart melts, his brain mushes up and his review reads like the last paragraph of a
It was a tale of two howlers at today’s PMQs. The Prime Minister made the fatal mistake of pausing at the wrong moment. David Cameron had probed him about the recapitalised banks’ failure to lend to small businesses and Brown stood up, swelling confidently into one of his self-congratulatory orations. ‘Not only did we save
