Lloyd Evans is The Spectator's sketch-writer and theatre critic
It’s all Kenneth Halliwell’s fault. By bashing in Joe Orton’s head with a hammer, he brought the playwright’s career to a premature halt when Orton was still experimenting with brittle and anarchic farces. Had Orton lived beyond 34, he’d have developed his technique and become a richer, truer and more rounded artist. And What the
I’m not the biggest fan of Neil Simon, I admit it. In the programme notes for The Sunshine Boys, I discovered that Time magazine once called him ‘the patron saint of laughter’. Good, I thought. When the curtain goes up I’ve got someone to pray to. The show opens with Danny DeVito slumped in a
Ed Miliband had it easy at PMQs today. The government is bleeding in all directions. And a further haemorrhage has arrived in the shape of Adrian Beecroft, a government adviser, whose proposal to relax employment law has delighted the Tory right and incensed the soft-and-cuddly Lib Dem left. ‘A proposal to fire at will’, is
If you want to see Scotland’s superiority complex in action, take a look at its literary culture. The works of Hume, Boswell, Walter Scott and Robert Louis Stevenson adorn libraries the world over, and it suits Scotland’s arts lobby to pretend that the age of excellence is still alive. It’s great PR and it justifies
Strange mood at PMQs today. Rather good-natured. Like a staff awayday with both sides joshing each other for fun. A Tory from the shires, Pauline Latham (Con, Mid-Derbyshire), stood up in her best garden-party dress and made this lament: ‘My constituents are having a very difficult time at the moment.’ Labour MPs cheered like mad.
We all know the ‘excellence theory’ of migration. Barriers to entry guarantee that imported cargoes have outstanding qualities. Manfred Karge’s parable of urban despair in the Ruhr comes to the UK with high expectations. It’s been here before. Director Stephen Unwin premièred the play at Edinburgh, 1987. His new revival at the Arcola demonstrates that
Rupert Murdoch is the kept woman of British politics. He inspires love, fear, paranoia and obsessive secrecy. Tony Blair suppressed the fact that he was godfather to Murdoch’s daughter, Grace. Gordon Brown wooed Murdoch but later declared war on him. Cameron smuggled him into Downing Street through the back door. Now, as his vast empire
Lloyd Evans talks to the young, dynamic and much-in-demand Tom Scutt about the challenges of bringing to life Narnia and its inhabitants Barky? What does he mean, ‘barky’? We’re talking about Aslan and he says he’s aiming for ‘barky’. ‘Barky like a dog or barky like a tree?’ ‘Like a tree,’ says Tom Scutt, designer
What’s going on? Everyone’s doing playlets all of a sudden. I saw five this week. The Donmar is presenting a trio of scripts by Robert Holman entitled Making Noise Quietly. A silly title. ‘A writers’ writer’ — an even sillier cliché — is how the programme notes describe Holman. If they mean ‘a boring writer’
Be still, at last, you clamouring brainboxes. Those who long for more highbrow drama in the West End can thank God for David Edgar’s Written on the Heart. Commissioned by the RSC, this celebratory play tells the story of the King James Bible, which was first published in 1612. Making scripture accessible to the masses
Ed Miliband led on the economy at PMQs. But he was only warming himself up for the main event. Leveson dominated proceedings. David Cameron lamented the ‘disappointing’ news that the country has slipped back into negative growth. ‘It’s all bluster,’ crowed Miliband. ‘His plan has failed.’ This recession was made in Downing Street, he said,
Once you grasp the essential triviality of the Olympics, the Cultural Olympiad falls perfectly into place, says Lloyd Evans. Even Shakespeare can’t escape Once you grasp the essential triviality of the Olympics, the Cultural Olympiad falls perfectly into place, says Lloyd Evans. Even Shakespeare can’t escape Funny business the Olympics. No one seems to want
Great title, Long Day’s Journey into Night. The sombre, majestic words are suffused with auguries of doom. ‘A play of old sorrow written in tears and blood,’ was O’Neill’s description of the script, which is inspired by his personal background. We’re in a beautiful seaside mansion where a prosperous New York family, the Tyrones, are
Tim Minchin swept the board at the Oliviers last Sunday. The Australian’s hit musical, Matilda, won a record seven gongs at the West End’s most prestigious awards ceremony. The rise of Minchin has been stratospheric. Just eight years ago he started out on the Melbourne cabaret circuit performing quizzical spoofs like ‘Inflatable You’, a ballad
An ebook arrives! The future of publishing on my hard-drive. All the big profits are in cyber-publishing these days, as I discovered last month when I downloaded an ebook for three quid and found it contained just 85 pages. This one, by Alwyn W. Turner, has only 72 pages, but it’s a penny cheaper at
And on it rumbles. Last month’s budget seems to have created more niche-losers than any tax settlement in history. Those who feel deprived are still squealing about it. At PMQs today Ed Miliband took a swipe at the Prime Minister on their behalf. Billionaires get bungs, grannies get mugged. That’s the headline Miliband was aiming
Not yet, since you ask. And I doubt if I ever will. My aversion to multiplex cinemas, with their cheerless foyers and their hordes of texting, tweeting cola-hydrated popcorn-gobblers, has deterred me from seeing new movies lately. The King’s Speech eluded me until it arrived, in its original form as a play, in the West
John Webster had one amazing skill. He could craft lines that glow in the memory like radioactive gems. ‘A politician is the devil’s quilted anvil; he fashions all sins on him, and the blows are never heard.’ Eliot loved him. Pinter used to stroll around the parks of Hackney shouting his soundbites into the sky.
It’s back. And I can’t believe I missed it the first time. Live Theatre’s dramatisation of Chris Mullin’s diaries has returned to Soho for a lap of honour. Richly deserved as well. The show moves unobtrusively between Mullin’s many spheres of interest. We see his home life as a father of two and as MP
The Spectator recently held a debate at the Royal Geographic Society with the motion ‘Immigration: Enough is Enough’. Proposing it were Frank Field MP, Dominic Raab MP and Kiran Bali MBE JP. Opposing were Oliver Kamm, Jenni Russell and David Aaronovitch. Andrew Neil chaired. Here is Lloyd Evans’ review: ‘I’m a coward,’ admitted Frank Field,