Lloyd Evans is The Spectator's sketch-writer and theatre critic
It has come down to a classroom contest. The swot versus the wag. The smart Alec against the rugger captain. The chemistry nerd who wants to join the cool kids behind the bike-sheds. Sir Keir has been praised for his ‘forensic’ attacks on Boris at PMQs. What is ‘forensic’? ‘Forum’ means a market-place and later
The National’s bizarre livestreaming service continues. On 7 May, for one week only, it released a modern-dress version of Antony and Cleopatra set in a series of strategy rooms, conference centres and five-star hotel suites. The lovestruck Roman was played by a louche, gruff, brooding Ralph Fiennes. Why is this man so watchable? He lacks
Keir Starmer is a very rum package. His body and his manner seem to belong to different organisms. His physique is martial, sturdy, invincible. The square jaw, the trunk-like neck, the unsettlingly symmetrical face, the blue but eerily lifeless eyes. But his personality has no trace of manliness at all. He seems grannyish, nervy, over-delicate,
A TV play by Tom Stoppard, A Separate Peace, was broadcast live on Zoom last Saturday. I watched as my screen divided itself into four cubes in which appeared the actors, performing from home. The play was written in 1964 and it’s well suited to the split-split screen format because no physical contact occurs between
PMQs began with a tribute from Speaker Hoyle who seemed thrilled to see Boris back at work and in Bunterish good health. ‘The whole country is delighted at his recovery,’ he added. A quick trawl thorough Twitter would disprove that optimistic claim. Sir Keir Starmer, in his debut against Boris, asked how the government could
‘Enjoy world-class theatre online for free,’ announces the National Theatre. Every Thursday at 7 p.m. a play from the archive is livestreamed. I watched Twelfth Night, from 2017, starring Tamsin Greig as a female Malvolio. What a handsome, absorbing and brilliantly staged production this is. Greig’s comically petulant Malvolia won the plaudits, rightly, while the
‘Such happy news amid such uncertainty’. The Speaker began PMQs with this tribute to Carrie and Boris’s baby. But his talk of ‘happy news amid such uncertainty’ might have referred to MPs tuning in via webcam whose living areas have been denuded of clutter. Last week, viewers got an eyeful of their MPs’ soft furnishings
Comedy is booming during lockdown. The clubs may be closed, indefinitely it seems, but the internet has come into its own. And the backlash against the liberal consensus is gathering pace. Here are seven of the best unwoke comedians. All are available on YouTube. The snag is that each clip is preceded by an advert
Not looking great, is it? Until we all get jabbed, theatres may have to stay closed. And even the optimists say a reliable vaccine is unlikely to arrive before Christmas. As the darkness persists, here’s a round-up of my leading experiences over nearly two decades as a reviewer. There’s been a surge of output. More
That wasn’t PMQs. That was World Of Interiors. With members scattered across the country, the session took place in a sparse, hushed Chamber. Dominic Raab stood in for the Prime Minister and Keir Starmer made his first appearance as opposition leader. But this historic debut was eclipsed by MPs at home asking questions online. This
Bernard-Henri Lévy is a haunted man. The French philosopher, speaking to me from Paris, told me that when he was 20 years old, in 1968, a flu pandemic broke out across the world which killed an estimated one million people. ‘It was at least as serious as the pandemic of today but without the same
High Tide got there first. The East Anglian theatre company has produced a series of lockdown mini-dramas, Love in the Time of Corona, made up of five filmed reflections on self-isolation. ‘Rainbows’ by Morgan Lloyd Malcolm is narrated by a woman on the edge teaching her kids to decorate the windows with coloured paints. ‘Child
Theatres have taken to the internet like never before. Recorded performances are being made available over the web, many for free. Getting Better Slowly is about a dancer, Adam Pownall, who spent two years fighting Guillain-Barré syndrome. This lucid and enjoyable show (recorded at Lincoln Drill Hall) now looks horribly topical. A young artist, paralysed
With theatres shut, radio must lighten the darkness. The Guilty Feminist is a wildly popular podcast performed by Deborah Frances-White and guests. In the episode of 23 March, the presenter hoped the superbug would cure our mania for business trips to ‘Philadelphia for a meeting about key performance indicators… Don’t fly to see people you
It seems a long time ago now. I was meeting the artistic director of a pub theatre near Westminster on the afternoon of 16 March. Already it was clear that this was one of the worst days of his professional life. That evening’s performance of a John Osborne play had been cancelled because a cast
Double bubble at PMQs. With MPs leaving Westminster a week early, the Speaker ruled that two sessions of PMQs should rub up against each other. It was a full one-hour grilling. Boris adopted his ‘Britain in wartime’ pose. He heaped every questioner with praise and gave his answers with theatrical solemnity. Asked about testing-rates, he
On Blueberry Hill sounds like a musical but it’s a sombre prison drama set in Ireland. Two bunkbeds. Above, an older man, Christy. Below, his younger companion, PJ. They take turns to talk, and gradually they reveal how their lives are interwoven. These are men of unusual intelligence and articulacy, and both are so profoundly
We will have to get used to this. Every afternoon the prime minister strides into a butterscotch room in Downing Street and stands at a lectern between two drooping flags to give the latest dolorous news to an uncertain nation. How ironic that Boris, who instinctively loathes ‘doomsters and gloomsters’, is obliged to play the
Last week Britain was a free-market democracy. Now we’re living in a one-party state. The transition became clear at PMQs today where General-Secretary Johnson gave bland and reassuring replies to super-soft questions from tame MPs. The House was half empty. Members practised a sort of semi-self-isolation. They sat apart from each other by a distance
Here’s the problem. Much communication is done online, especially by youngsters, and much drama focuses on communication. So how do theatre-makers represent emails and telephonic chitchat in ways that are stimulating and realistic? The usual solution is to mount blank screens around the stage and to beam the comms on to the boards while the
