Lloyd Evans is The Spectator's sketch-writer and theatre critic
In the Blood Finborough, until 4 September Zelda Leicester Square Those who oppose state-funded theatre in Britain sometimes imagine that America, with its far smaller subsidised sector, is spared the sort of pious, jokeless, grind-yer-nose-in-it plays which our handout theatres use to punish audiences for the sin of being affluent. But American theatre turns out
It began like any other Edinburgh gig. A cellar bar at midnight. An Australian compère warming up the crowd. ‘Anybody here from overseas?’ A voice shouted ‘I’m from Amsterdam!’ in a gnarled Glaswegian accent. It was supposed to be funny but no one laughed. The compère, sensing a challenge in the man’s voice, delivered an
Uber Hate Gang Underbelly Little Black Bastard; Stripped Gilded Balloon The Tailor of Inverness Udderbelly Pasture Ginger and Black Pleasance And it’s getting bigger. Amazing as it sounds, the Edinburgh Festival keeps expanding like a slum landlord. Every year half a dozen cobwebbed halls and disused assembly rooms are forced open, spruced up and pressed
Lloyd Evans joins the hopeful hordes seeking fame and fortune in Edinburgh Wonderful, Edinburgh. Isn’t it magical? The artistic world has descended on Scotland’s magnificent capital for three weeks of self-expression and glorious creativity. Or so everyone wants everyone else to think. When people speak of Edinburgh they reach whoopingly for a peculiar grammatic mode,
The Sun Also Rises Royal Lyceum The Cage Pleasance Borderline Racist The Canons’ Gait The Edinburgh International Festival, respectable elder brother of the drop-out Fringe, takes its art very seriously indeed and expects the audience to do the same. It gives us the exotic, the challenging, the eclectic, the mesmeric. It gives us, in a
The Great British Country Fête Bush, until 14 August The Great Game: Afghanistan, Part 1 Tricycle, until 29 August Russell Kane, a rising star of stand-up, has penned a musical satire with an inflammatory theme. His play opens in a Suffolk village where the locals have risen up against Tesco’s attempts to blight the community
The Prince of Homburg Donmar, until 4 September Danton’s Death Olivier, in rep until 14 October Welcome to London. This month we’re hosting the world’s very first, but probably not its last, Useless German Playwright Festival. Here’s a scribbler you may not have heard of. Heinrich von Kleist, born in 1777, angered his Prussian family
Spur of the Moment Royal Court, until 21 August The Beauty Queen of Leenane Young Vic, until 21 August Henry IV Part 2 Shakespeare’s Globe, until 3 October It used to be policemen, now playwrights are getting younger too. Spur of the Moment is a debut work by Anya Reiss, who hasn’t left the sixth
Don’t knock daytime TV, says Lloyd Evans. It may be mindless and banal, but it is entertainment in its purest form It’s happening right now. I just had a flick-through and it’s all going on. You wouldn’t believe it. A Labrador called Pongo has been squashed by a tractor and is having his broken paw
The Prisoner of Second Avenue Vaudeville, until 25 September Lingua Franca Finborough, until 7 August Neil Simon has received more nominations from Oscar and Tony than any other dramatist in history, so his comedies ought to be playing constantly in London. But revivals of his plays are rarities. Something of the Simonian essence seems to
At last, Nick Clegg got his chance to pretend to be PM today and he used it to give a dazzling impression of Gordon Brown. Opposing him, Jack Straw was off-colour. Hoarse of throat and hunched of stance, he did his best to bring some clarity to Britain’s new mission in Afghan – Operation Leg
Welcome to Thebes Olivier, in rep until 18 August La Bête Comedy, booking to 4 September My mind didn’t just boggle. My whole body did. Every sensory organ joined in the process — ears, eyes, nose, teeth, tongue. All boggled. Even my left shoulder started boggling at one point, although this turned out to be
This is amazing. People could scarcely believe it. No less an organism than the Big Society was spotted briefly at PMQs today. Angie Bray, Tory member for South Acton, asked David Cameron to praise a voluntary programme which enables her constituents to share skills and expertise with their neighbours. ‘This is what the Big Society
Speaker Bercow needs to be stopped. His management of PMQs is becoming a scandal. Having menaced MPs last night with a speech complaining about unruly behaviour in the house, (‘the screech of scrutiny’), he added a coded threat to sin-bin any member who offends his sense of decorum. Today he found the chamber as quiet
The Tempest Old Vic, until 21 August Sucker Punch Royal Court, until 31 July Last week when I trotted over to the Old Vic to see The Tempest I had no idea I was about to experience one of the strangest performances of my life. About 20 minutes into the show a heavily built man
Sorry! Footsbarn Theatre, Victoria Park and touring As You Like It Old Vic, until 21 August Footsbarn Theatre’s new production Sorry! isn’t the greatest show on earth but it may well be the strangest. The conjunction of opposites permeates every level of this peculiar enterprise. The name is English. The players are French. They perform
Hattie came to PMQs in one of her ‘visible-from-space’ frocks. Today’s fashion statement from the acting Labour leader introduced honourable members to a shade of electric turquoise which may well be new to Newtonian physics. It was best enjoyed through sunglasses to prevent retinal scarring. Ms Harman had just one political weapon today – the
Through a Glass Darkly Almeida, until 31 July After the Dance Lyttelton, in rep until 11 August Ingmar Bergman wrote his first film aged 24. It was called Torment and he continued to entertain audiences in similar vein for the rest of his career. That an artist is easy to satirise is no proof of
The Spectator’s summer debating season ended with a strident appeal. ‘Too late to save Britain. It’s time to leave’. Proposing the motion, Rod Liddle claimed to have mis-read his invitation. ‘I thought this was a foregone conclusion and we’d come here to arrange the tickets.’ Surging immigration, he said, was ruining the education system and
The unthinkable has happened. I’ve started to admire Batty Hattie’s performances at PMQs. Her career may be over, her party may be trashed, her movement may drift leaderless, and her colleagues’ reputation may have been shot to pieces but Hattie always turns up and gives it everything. Nature has not overburdened her with talent. She
