Lloyd Evans is The Spectator's sketch-writer and theatre critic
The Empire Royal Court, until 1 May Polar Bears Donmar, until 22 May The Royal Court’s stuffy little upstairs theatre is hosting a new play about cultural imperialism. D.C. Moore sets his scene in Helmand where a young English corporal finds himself morally compromised by his desire to torture a Taleban prisoner. The twist is
London Assurance Olivier, in rep until 2 June Bedroom Farce Duke of York’s, booking to 10 July Trickster nature has been maliciously kind to Simon Russell Beale. It made him the leading actor of his generation and instilled in him a desire to perform Shakespeare’s awesome roll-call of warrior princes. It also built him like
The choppers, and the whoppers, were flying at Westminster today. David Cameron invited the prime minister to try a spot of accountability at PMQs. Would he admit that he scrimped on transport aircraft in Helmand? Brown, with breathtaking cheek and not a little rhetorical dexterity, flipped the question upside down. ‘I do not accept that
The Gods Weep Hampstead, until 3 April Mrs Warren’s Profession Comedy, booking to 19 June Finding fault with Shakespeare is one of the RSC’s favourite activities. It’s now so fed up with King Lear that it has decided it needs to be scrapped and rewritten. A tall order? Not a bit of it. The company
The Sanctuary Lamp Arcola, until 3 April Eigengrau Bush, until 10 April Furore fever still obsesses Irish playwrights. In Edwardian times there was nothing like a good old riot at the Abbey Theatre to get a new work established as a classic. Luvvie lore is replete with tales of mass walkouts and punch-ups at Dublin
Cameron was scarcely trying at PMQs today. Show up, look a bit cross, slip in a joke or two, then sit down and wait for the Budget. That was his plan. When the PM offered his congratulations on BabyCam, the opposition leader quoted a text he’d received – ‘How do you find time for these
Love Never Dies Adelphi, booking to October The Fever Chart Trafalgar Studio 2, booking to 3 April Love Never Dies has been bugging Andrew Lloyd Webber since 1990. He felt that the Phantom of the Opera needed a sequel and he’s been working on it for roughly three times as long as it took Tolstoy
He did it. We saw him. It actually happened. History was made at PMQs today as Gordon Brown finally gave a direct answer to a direct question. Not only that, he admitted he’d been wrong about something. Tony Baldry (Con, Banbury) informed the PM that his assertion before the Chilcot Inquiry that defence spending has
Private Lives Vaudeville, until 1 May Party Arts, until 13 March This isn’t right. This can’t be happening. She’s over 50. Quite a bit over. In fact, she’s 53 and she’s playing the 29-year-old heroine in one of the finest comedies in the repertoire. And she’s doing it in London. And she isn’t even English.
It was like a volcano going off. At PMQs today Cameron was calmly dissecting the prime minister’s underfunding of the Afghan war when he quoted two former defence chiefs who’d called Brown ‘disingenuous’ and ‘a dissembler’. Then someone shouted, ‘they’re Tories!’ Cameron lost control. Instantly, completely. His temper just went. White in the face, he
Every year the cream of Scotland comes to Boisdale of Belgravia to celebrate Scottish talent and to toast the winner of the Johnnie Walker Blue Label Great Scot award. Boisdale is quietly opulent. The mighty banqueting tables and blood-red walls decorated with country views suggest baronial splendour in a modern key. It’s Balmoral with central
Ghosts Duchess, until 15 May Off the Endz Royal Court, until 13 March Ghosts is the most Ibsenite of all Ibsen’s plays. In a sub-Arctic backwater two pairs of lovers pursue doomed romances while outside it drizzles constantly. Oswald can’t marry his mother’s serving-girl because his brain is being attacked by syphilis. Meanwhile, Pastor Manders’s
Brown bunked off PMQs today, claiming a prior luncheon engagement with President Zuma of South Africa. Downing Street blamed the Queen for double-booking the PM. Can that be true? The head of state deprives the Commons of its democratic right to shout ‘Answer the question’ at a block of granite. Perhaps she had their best
Here come the Oscars. Even people who rarely visit the cinema can’t resist the world’s greatest awards ceremony. The collision of extremities makes it compulsive viewing. It’s a sort of morality play where the seven deadly sins, and their contrary virtues, are paraded in dumbshow. Greed, hope, vanity, despair, jubilation, pride, joy, envy and a
Serenading Louie Donmar, until 27 March Measure for Measure Almeida, until 10 April Genius detectors, busy in America, want us to meet the playwright Lanford Wilson. He hasn’t made much impact here possibly because his talent is so vast it can’t be hauled across the Atlantic. His 1970s play Serenading Louie focuses on marital infidelity
‘Any closer and they’ll start kissing,’ said Cameron. The PM and his beloved chancellor were seated side by side at PMQs today, chatting showily throughout. Their rhubarb-rhubarb conversation was intended to quell the rumours of civil war in Downing Street. The ploy misfired. Two men conversing don’t both speak at each other simultaneously. But that
11 and 12 Barbican, until 27 February A Life In Three Acts: Bette Bourne and Mark Ravenhill Soho, until 27 February Peter Brook, the world’s most maddening theatre director, returns to London with an adaptation of a novel set in the French colony of Mali in west Africa. Brook is never as bad as his
Chair – Andrew Neil Proposing – Correlli Barnett, Simon Jenkins Opposing – Charles Guthrie, Andrew Roberts Farce very nearly visited the debate on Afghanistan on Tuesday. A parliamentary three-line whip prevented the MPs Liam Fox and Peter Kilfoyle from reaching the hall. So our ancient democracy threatened a debate on Afghanistan’s brand new one. The
Really Old, Like Forty-Five Cottesloe, in rep until 20 April Stage Fright Canal Café, until 20 February This is what the National is for. A little-known writer Tamsin Oglesby has been given a chance to shine on the Cottesloe stage. Her Alzheimer’s play sets out to give the age-old issue of old age a brisk
The Tory graveyard poster – brilliant and shocking – cast a long shadow over PMQs today. The debate itself came down to fine judgements about the validity of the leaders’ arguments. Cameron demanded to know if Brown planned to introduce this grim levy or not. He quoted acidic comments from senior Labour figures who’ve called
