Lloyd Evans is The Spectator's sketch-writer and theatre critic
Fists flew at Prime Minister’s Questions. The party leaders sprang from their corners and bashed each other repeatedly in the face. It was fun to watch. Kemi Badenoch accused Sir Keir Starmer of performing so many U-turns that ‘his head must be spinning.’ Two weeks ago, he panicked and cancelled his decision to withdraw the winter
Sanity returns to the Globe. Recent modern-dress productions have failed to make use of the theatre’s virtues as a historical backdrop. The Crucible by Arthur Miller is set in the 1690s (about a century after Shakespeare’s heyday) and the script works beautifully on this spare, wooden stage. To make the groundlings feel involved, the playing
When I left university, I prepared for a short spell of poverty while I sent off amusing and opinionated articles to newspaper editors who needed the work of smart alecks like me to entertain their readers. My short spell of poverty lasted 17 years. In the meantime, I survived on odd jobs, including a stint
38 min listen
On this week’s Spectator Out Loud: James Heale analyses the splits in Labour over direction and policy (1:27); Angus Colwell asks if the ‘lanyard class’ are the new enemy (6:21); Alice Loxton explains why bite-sized histories have big appeal (9:58); Lloyd Evans reports on how Butlin’s is cashing in on nostalgia (15:00); Richard Bratby on Retrospect
Richard Bean appears to be Hampstead Theatre’s in-house dramatist, and his new effort, House of Games, is based on a 1987 movie directed by David Mamet. The script sets up a rather laborious collision between two vastly different cultures. A gang of small-time crooks in Chicago are visited by a beautiful, high-flying, Harvard-educated academic who
Butlin’s is no longer a holiday ‘camp’. The company has evolved from its postwar heyday and now describes its properties as ‘resorts’ which are crammed with restaurants, bars and venues for live gigs. It’s like a cruise but on dry land. I went to Bognor Regis for a nostalgic ‘Ultimate 80s’ weekend where the performers
That hardly ever happens. A major climbdown was announced in the house of commons at PMQs. Sir Keir Starmer used a scripted question to reveal a massive U-turn on winter fuel payments and he timed his bombshell to give the opposition leader, Kemi Badenoch, very little chance to improvise a reply. Sir Keir’s gamble worked.
Two hours of yakking about Israel. That’s all you get from Giant at the Harold Pinter Theatre. Endless wittering laced with venomous bigotry. The year is 1983 and the celebrated kiddie author, Roald Dahl, has kicked up a massive stink by denouncing Israel for attacking Lebanon in late 1982. His latest scribble, The Witches, is
Sir Keir Starmer had a new song today at PMQs. The Tories are finished. He said it twice to Kemi Badenoch. It was a deliberate ploy. So what’s he up to? Kemi was ill-prepared for the session. She should have changed tack as soon as she heard Sir Keir’s opening statement about immigration. Kemi’s day
War is raging over Canterbury’s future. Only two Labour councillors are left in the whole of Kent, in the north and south of the city, compared to the 57 Reform councillors who now control the county. Reform entirely replaced the Tories, who were left with just five councillors. Canterbury’s tale is one of general decline. The
The Gang of Three gets into the nitty-gritty of Labour politics in the 1970s. It opens with the resignation of Roy Jenkins as deputy leader in 1972 in a desperate attempt to quell the party’s growing hostility to the Common Market. He holds a council of war with Anthony Crosland, his old Oxford chum, and
Kemi Badenoch tried two ambushes at PMQs. She lambasted Sir Keir Starmer for cutting the winter fuel allowance and leaving old folks to shiver through the coldest months of the year. But Sir Keir claimed that he was merely trying to stabilise the economy. Kemi accused him of balancing the books ‘on the backs of
My Master Builder is a new version of Ibsen’s classic with a tweaked title and a transformed storyline. Henry and Elena Solness are a British power couple living in the Hamptons whose relationship is in meltdown after the accidental death of their son. Elena has scrambled to reach the top of the publishing world but
We have two leaders of the opposition. Labour can’t decide which is the larger threat. Prime Minister’s Questions opened with a botched query from Labour backbencher Dan Tomlinson. He asked Sir Keir Starmer to comment on a possible pact between the Tories and Reform. An amazing spectacle. An MP so clueless that he can’t ask a
Tending is a work of activism on behalf of the NHS. The script brings together the testimony of 70 nurses in a show spoken by three performers. It’s full of surprises and shocks. All NHS nurses are obliged to annotate their actions as they work. ‘If you haven’t documented it, you haven’t done it,’ they’re
Women and Sir Keir Starmer. That was the issue that dominated a fiery PMQs today. Tory leader Kemi Badenoch asked Sir Keir if he’d been ‘wrong to say trans women are women.’ His bland but careful answer expressed a wish that ‘service providers’ should obey the ruling. Then he loftily advised the house to ‘lower
Rhinoceros by Eugene Ionesco is a period piece from 1959. It opens with the invasion of a French village by a herd of rhinoceroses. This paranormal event is never explained. In Act Two, the villagers start to imagine that they’ve become rhinoceroses and changed species. But one plucky sceptic, who defies conformity, refuses to swap
Robert Icke’s new play examines one of the least appetising characters in British criminal history. Raoul Moat went on a shooting spree in July 2010 that left his wife injured, a cop blinded and an innocent man dead. This superb piece of reportage offers us a glimpse into the mind of a damaged brute. Moat
Amanda Abbington’s new show is heavily indebted to Noël Coward’s Hay Fever.Coward’s early play follows the tribulations of the superficial Bliss family and at first it was rejected by producers because it lacked action or incident. The oddly titled show, (This is not a) Happy Room, opens on the eve of a family wedding. Disaster
Kemi Badenoch is doing all right at PMQs. The Tory leader is effective in the build-up but her finishing is weak. The point of the inquisition is make the interviewee tremble with fear. Here’s how she ended each of today’s question to Sir Keir Starmer: ‘What’s his advice to business owners laying off staff?’ ‘Why
