Lloyd Evans is The Spectator's sketch-writer and theatre critic
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
The Late Middle Classes Donmar, until 17 July Lilies of the Land Arts, until 17 July Plotless plays are usually the work of beginners or nutcases. Very occasionally they’re produced by seasoned theatrical wizards. Simon Gray belongs to the third type. The Late Middle Classes is an absorbing and often hilarious portrait of the buttoned-up
After years of fury and rancour in the chamber, the mood at PMQs was sober and rational today. (Personally, I hope it hots up again soon but the armistice certainly made a change). Under no pressure whatever, Cameron roamed at will over the full spectrum of government policy and gave intruiging hints about future priorities.
Lloyd Evans talks to Michael Attenborough, whose star at the Almeida is the theatre itself The back office of the Almeida Theatre in Islington could do with a major refit. Dowdy, open-plan and scattered with Free-cycled furniture, it looks like the chill-out room of a student bar or the therapy suite of some underfunded weight-watch
All My Sons Apollo, booking to 2 October Shrunk Cock Tavern, until 12 June It starts softly, in a dream of American contentment. A country house nestles in the lap of its lush and blossoming garden. The sun shines. Birds sing. Green foliage drips with the rain from last night’s storm and Joe Keller, a
Ingredient X Royal Court, until 19 June Canary Hampstead, until 12 June In the old days the Royal Court knew that the best way to entertain local millionaires was to stage plays that wallowed in distress and squalor and featured four crack addicts in a squat stabbing each other to death with infected needles. Things
Love the Sinner Cottesloe, until 10 July Ditch Old Vic Tunnels, Waterloo Approach Road, until 26 June Bickering vicars at the National. A new play by Drew Pautz invites us to consider whether the Church should ordain gay clergypersons. It’s a paradox that an organisation run by men in skirts is so vexed by the
A Thousand Stars Explode in the Sky Lyric, Hammersmith, until 5 June Counting the Ways Oval House The Lyric theatre in Hammersmith has an eccentric approach to the dearth of writing talent. Unable to find a good playwright, it has commissioned three bad ones to showcase their talentlessness in a single work. One assumes that
‘Heroin?’ I say to Simon Russell Beale. ‘Sorry?’ he says. ‘To relax after a show. To come down off the high. You take heroin?’ ‘Oh yes, yes,’ he says. ‘Yes… if only. Well, as you can probably tell from my shape I like my beer. I can’t imagine a performance without a pint or two
Dirty White Boy: Tales of Soho Trafalgar Studio 2, until 22 May Holding the Man Trafalgar Studio 1, until 3 July Blogs and blogging, bloggers and bloggery. What’s it all about? At first sight blogomania looks like an entirely new literary form. A second glance reveals that it’s the oldest genre of the lot: oral
The holiday season is upon us, but it’s nothing to celebrate, says Lloyd Evans. Tourism is torture, no matter how you do it Oh God. Here it comes again. The days lengthen, the temperature climbs, the pollen spreads and the mighty armies of foreign invaders prepare to make their move. It’s not illegal immigrants who
Women Beware Women Olivier, in rep until 4 July Hair Gielgud, booking until January 2011 Women Beware Women deserves a subtitle: spectators beware seldom revived classics. Thomas Middleton’s 1622 play is set in the duke’s court at Florence, where greed, lust, incest and the hunger for power are running rampant. Middleton is much admired, little
Counted? County Hall, until 22 May The Real Thing Old Vic, until 5 June Voting is so irrational as to qualify as an act of religious devotion. The process involves a fabulous confluence of approximations. Candidates offer a pattern of promises. Voters select the pattern that most closely meets their needs. And though there may