Lloyd Evans

Lloyd Evans

Lloyd Evans is The Spectator's sketch-writer and theatre critic

The Heckler: Why I’m allergic to Stephen Sondheim

I came out in a rash when I heard that Emma Thompson was to star in Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd at the Coliseum. Sondheim has that effect on me. And it’s an allergy I bear with pride. I’ve been the victim of a Sondheim evening only once in my life and I emerged feeling as

Budget Sketch: Penny-pinchers like me can rejoice

That was a motto-blaster of a budget. George Osborne deployed half a dozen chewy new Tory slogans during this afternoon’s statement. ‘Britain walking tall again. … a country built on savings not debt … ten pounds off a tank under the Tories … Britain – the comeback country …’ It’s unclear whether: a) Lynton Crosby

PMQs sketch: Miliband could have lost the election today

Was this the day Ed Miliband lost the election? Only two PMQs remain before polling day and the Labour leader used all six questions to ask David Cameron one thing: when might he ask him more questions? Nothing on policy. Nothing on convictions. Just questions about questions. He meant questions outside the House, of course.

Why George Bernard Shaw was an overrated babbler

When I was a kid, I was taught by a kindly old Jesuit whose youth had been beguiled by George Bernard Shaw. The provocative ironies of ‘GBS’ were quoted everywhere and he was, for several decades, the world’s leading public intellectual. But as a schoolboy I found it hard to assent to the infatuations of

PMQs Sketch: Cameron’s ducking and diving

Dodge and shimmy. Duck and weave. Cameron was at it again today. Ed Miliband asked if he’d care to join him for a spot of cut and thrust on TV. One to one. He had a date, 30 April, pencilled in for the gig. Kettle crisps and a glass of merlot on the PM’s rider.

PMQs sketch: A jam for Cam but the greased piglet escaped again!

That was a close one. Miliband set two traps for the PM today. One was visible. The other, far more dangerous, was hidden until the very last moment. Miliband wants Tories to vote against a bill that will forbid serving MPs from acting as company directors. This connects sweetly with his  ‘Thatcherite swine gobbling at

PMQs sketch: Today’s storm of accusations

The Swiss list, or swizz list, dominated PMQs. Ed Miliband was keen to paint Cameron as the beneficiary of ‘dodgy’ donors who craftily side-stepped their tax bills and funnelled the proceeds back to Tory HQ. The stink also enveloped Stephen Green, given a peerage by Cameron, who ran HSBC at a time when it helped

Tom Stoppard’s The Hard Problem review: too clever by half

Big event. A new play from Sir Tom. And he tackles one of philosophy’s oldest and crunchiest issues, which varsity thinkers call ‘the hard problem’. How is it that a wrinkled three-pound blancmange sitting at the top of the spinal cord can generate abstract thoughts of almost limitless complexity? In real life Sir Tom is

PMQs sketch: Cameron demonstrates true gamesmanship

Last week it was seven. This morning it stood at nine. By the end of PMQs it had climbed to 12. The statistic everyone is yawning about is the number of shimmies Ed Miliband has performed while failing to admit that he once vowed to ‘weaponise’ the NHS. The only source for Ed’s gangster talk,

PMQs Sketch: Cameron denies any Chilcot responsibility

Warning to publishers. Don’t commission a first-time author without giving him a deadline. The Chilcot Inquiry, a long-pondered probe into the origins of the Iraq war, is maturing gracefully and expensively like a lovely old port. Seven years and counting. Let’s hope it tastes good when it comes out. At PMQs, David Cameron replied to

Truth, Lies, Diana review: it was a cover-up!

Truth, Lies, Diana Charing Cross Theatre, in rep until 14 February John Conway’s sensationalist play, Truth, Lies, Diana, is a forensic re-examination of the circumstances surrounding the princess’s death in 1997. The issue of Prince Harry’s paternity, which earned the play much advance publicity, reaches no conclusions. James Hewitt co-operated with the show and Conway portrays

Lloyd Evans

Old Vic’s Tree: Beckett plus Seinfeld – plus swearing

‘Fucking hell. You twat. Fuck off. Fuck. Fuck.’ These dispiriting words are the opening line of Tree, a newish play by the lugubrious comic Daniel Kitson, whose stand-up show once transported me into the heavenly arms of Lethe. His script opens with a chance encounter between two oddball smart Alecs. The outdoor setting, borrowed from