Lloyd Evans 
Theatre: James Baldwin’s The Amen Corner is dazzlingly funny. Kim Cattrall is a revelation in a monstrous role
Good and bad at the National. The Amen Corner by James Baldwin is a wryly observed comedy drama written for a studio theatre. It’s an excellent small play. The director… Read more
Theatre review: Despite the wordiness and monstrous plotlines, Strange Interlude is gripping
First the good news. Strange Interlude by Eugene O’Neill has been cut down from five hours to just under three and a half. The action, if you can call it… Read more
Strictly Ann, by Ann Widdecombe - review
An oddball. And proud to be one. Ann Widdecombe has sailed through life with the same brisk, no-nonsense style that she brings to this highly readable memoir. She attended a… Read more
Interview: Theatre director Marianne Elliott on really, really good and bad plays
Ah! Here comes the girl from the temping agency. That’s my first reaction when I meet Marianne Elliott, director of the global hit War Horse, and winner of this year’s… Read more
Theatre review: Below par Mamet is still more fun than a personal-best performance from a second-rater
Mamet is back. His 2009 play Race is an offbeat courtroom drama set entirely in a lawyers’ office before the trial begins. Jack and Henry are two hotshot attorneys, one… Read more
It's madness to slash the British Museum's budget
The best argument in favour of state funding of the arts was made in the middle of the 18th century. In 1753 an Act of Parliament established the personal collection… Read more
Theatre review: Relatively Speaking, Disgraced
Here are your instructions. Relatively Speaking by Alan Ayckbourn is a comedy classic so you’d better enjoy it or else. The play dates from 1967 when Ayckbourn was working as… Read more
Are theatre critics on drugs? Fallen in Love and Pastoral reviewed
A marvellous novelty at the Tower of London. The Banqueting Suite of the New Armouries has been converted into a pop-up theatre and the Tower authorities have welcomed a new… Read more
5 Days in May, by Andrew Adonis - review
Andrew Adonis enjoyed a week of glory in 2010. The former Lib Dem activist was asked to join Labour’s negotiating team as they tried to forge a coalition with Nick… Read more
Passion Play; The Match Box
How fashions change. Peter Nichols’s adultery drama, Passion Play, will seem tame and rather conventional to modern audiences. It was written in 1981 at a time when the rites and… Read more
Josie Rourke has a hit at last with The Weir, The Tempest: a karaoke version of all
The Weir is the ultimate hit-from-nowhere. It was written in 1997 by the 26-year-old Conor McPherson. It opened at the Royal Court Upstairs and glided over to Broadway and then… Read more
Adrian Lester is one of the great Othellos; Glory Dazed
Amazing news at the National. Nicholas Hytner has invented a time machine that can bring Shakespeare to bumpkins who’ve never bothered to read him. His up-to-date Othello begins with Venice’s… Read more
Theatre: Children of the Sun; The Arrest of Ai Wei Wei
They’re back. Howard Davies and his translator Andrew Upton had a well-deserved hit in 2007 with Gorky’s Philistines at the Lyttelton. Children of the Sun, which Gorky wrote in jail… Read more
Upstairs, downstairs
Never a dull moment at the Jermyn Street Theatre. It’s a titchy venue, the size of a gents’ loo, nestling beneath a cavernous flight of stairs in the nameless hinterland… Read more
Theatre review: The Low Road and Quasimodo
A lap of honour at the Royal Court. Bruce Norris has been one of the big discoveries of artistic director Dominic Cooke, who takes his bow by directing The Low… Read more
Nicholas Hytner’s National Theatre: Ten years and a million cheap tickets
‘The house that Ho Chi Minh built.’ That’s how Nicholas Hytner refers to his ample north London home. In 1989, at the age of 34, he was hired by Cameron… Read more
Peter and Alice
Inspired writer, John Logan. His 2009 play, Red, delved brilliantly into the gloom-ridden, suicidal mind of the misanthropic modernist painter Mark Rothko. The play’s unflinching and sordid honesty earned the… Read more
‘In the beginning was breath’
Declan Donnellan is riding high. His acclaimed production of the burlesque classic Ubu Roi has confirmed his membership of the elite group of British directors who enjoy renown across Continental… Read more
The Book of Mormon is toothless, jokeless, plotless and pointless
Impossible, surely. The Book of Mormon could never live up to the accolades lavished on it by America’s critics. ‘Blissfully original, outspoken, irreverent and hilarious,’ was a typical review. The… Read more
Mr Speaker: The Office and the Individuals since 1945, by Matthew Laban - review
The sheer workload. That’s the first big surprise in Matthew Laban’s absorbing history of the Speakership since 1945. Typically, the Speaker rises at dawn and holds several hours of preparatory… Read more
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