Lloyd Evans is The Spectator's sketch-writer and theatre critic
David Haig is one of those actors who can’t escape the visual identity of his characters. He’s the sad suburban salaryman. He’s the pasty-faced petty bureaucrat. He’s the bungling office curmudgeon with a volcanic temper. He just looks that way. Except that he doesn’t. I barely recognise the suntanned Bohemian figure who strolls up and
The Ladykillers is back. Sean Foley’s adaptation of the classic Ealing comedy introduces us to a crew of villains who stage a train heist while lodging in the house of a sweet old lady. She discovers their crime and when they try to bump her off she proves indestructible. The 1955 movie makes a huge
Cigs and booze. These issues dominated PMQs today. Ed Miliband tried to portray the PM as a puppet of ‘Big Tobacco’ whose decision not to introduce plain packaging for cigarettes was influenced by his electoral guru, Lynton Crosby. Had the PM ever ‘had a conversation’ with Crosby about fag packets? Shifty Cameron dodged sideways and
It’s always a problem with Macbeth: what accents to use? The Globe is applying the traditional remedy. Lord and Lady Macbeth come from Epsom. Everyone else comes from Glasgow. This is a highly entertaining production — one of the best at the Globe in recent years — but it’s not entirely perfect. Joseph Millson has
Gosh. I wouldn’t mind being Peter Nichols. Eighty-six this month and still enjoying the easy domesticity and professional stimulation he’s benefited from since the 1960s when he was propelled to stardom by his play about raising a disabled daughter, A Day in the Death of Joe Egg. He lives in a penthouse flat in north
Andy Murray’s joy is now complete. Yes, he won Wimbledon and all that, but his crowning glory came today when he was mentioned at the start of PMQs. Cameron apparently has no idea how goofy and devious he looked last Sunday when he half-opened the door of Downing Street and stepped out to greet Murray
Dominic Cooke did it at the Royal Court. Now Ed Hall is having crack as well. Cooke’s crazy decision to place his theatre at the disposal of young scribblers prompted the emergence of several brilliant new female playwrights, some barely out of their teens. Ed Hall, following suit, has brought a play by newcomer Melanie
Today Ed Miliband headed for the favourite destination of faltering leaders: abroad. Any crisis-stricken banana republic will do. At PMQs the Labour leader decided that Egypt would fit the bill. Knitting his brows into a gap-year frown of munificent superiority, Miliband asked the PM to tell us how Britain is encouraging President Morsi ‘to secure
We meet in the late afternoon at a jazzy little bistro near the Old Vic. I hadn’t quite prepared myself for the sheer visual impact of Anna Chancellor. Imposingly tall and wearing a simple glamorous frock, she rises to greet me. The dispositions of her face — the dimpled chin, the high cheekbones and the
Off to Wonka. With no preconceptions either. I’ve never seen this story on stage, page or screen and it strikes me as a dysfunctional hybrid of Oz and Twist. The show kicks off with a cartoon history of chocolate which — whoopsidaisy! — omits to mention sugar as an ingredient. We meet Charlie Bucket, an
listen to ‘Spending review 2013: the Coffee House analysis’ on Audioboo Shock news at PMQs. Miliband scored a hit. He succeeded in making Cameron look silly. True, he enjoyed his triumph a little too much, but his performance will have cheered his party enormously. For weeks they’ve had to watch their leader bungling at the
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 Rufus Norris pumps it full of steroids and tries to turn it into a great American epic like Streetcar or The Crucible. His staging suggests
This was a card-shredder of a performance by Ed Miliband. He’s had some difficult outings lately but he barely even showed up at PMQs today. His team of phrase-makers and sloganeers have abandoned him too. Either they’re in the Priory, taking emergency anti-depressants, or they’ve quit the party altogether. And those in Labour’s heartlands watching
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 that, begins at 7 p.m. but if you reach the Lyttelton theatre at the more civilised hour of 8 you’ll have missed very little. The
Oh dear. Another lousy day at the races for Ed Miliband. It began as soon as he stood up at PMQs. The mournful angularities of his face settled into a frosty grimace as the Tories greeted him with ironic whoops and cheers. And on they went, yelling and braying. Miliband seems to believe that adopting
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 white, one black, who must decide whether to accept the case of a prosperous banker, Charles, accused of raping a black woman in a hotel.
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 Olivier for her work on The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time. She’s a trim, attractive fortysomething with a neat blonde bob and
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 school where God was taught ‘as a fact not a belief’. Her parents encouraged her to choose friends on the basis of ‘fun and kindness’
Thwack! That was the sound of Ed Miliband being knocked for six at PMQs. He didn’t stand a chance. Even before he could get to his feet, David Cameron had put a question to him. Against the rules. But so what? Cameron wanted to know if the Labour leader would withdraw his constant attacks on
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 a sketch writer for Ronnie Barker. It was his first hit. Notes in the programme testify to the play’s excellence. A telegram sent to Ayckbourn