Lloyd Evans is The Spectator's sketch-writer and theatre critic
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The B-team were back today. With Gordon Brown abroad on Superman duty it was left to Hague and Harman to slug it out. Harman was as useless as ever, unsteady, inarticulate, hectoring, self-satisfied. Rather than engage with the debate she ducks incoming fire and replies with a prepared weapon. Yet again we heard that the
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Berlin Hanover Express Hampstead Invasion! Soho When TV writers turn to the stage there’s often a suspicion of fly-tipping, of rejected ideas being dumped in the hope that others will tidy them away. Ian Kennedy Martin, creator of The Sweeney, has come up with a cracking theme. Berlin, 1942. Two Irish diplomats grapple with the
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A good old-fashioned punch-up at PMQs today. Much dust was raised, much smoke emitted and our old friend, the Truth, barely got a look in. Brown was ready and waiting for Cameron when he led on the surge in unemployment to 2 million. His note of piety was well received, at least by his fellow
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Lloyd Evans visits the NoFit State Circus in Wales and watches an unusual rehearsal T here are lots of things you can’t do any more. Smoke in a pub. Buy a video recorder. Trust the bloke who runs your bank. And you can’t run away to the circus either. These days the wannabe stilt-walker or
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Dancing at Lughnasa Old Vic Burnt by the Sun Lyttelton It’s almost physically painful to see the vandalism wrought at the Old Vic by the new stage configuration. It’s like looking at some doomed Darwinian experiment, a cloven-hoofed butterfly, a spaniel with a trunk, a winged slug. Worse still is the fussy, over-ambitious set for
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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.
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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