Lloyd Evans is The Spectator's sketch-writer and theatre critic
India A crowded bus station. A lady monkey with a baby clinging to its neck sidled past me, eyeing the banana I was eating. I barely noticed them. A moment later, claws dug into my back. A skeletal hand darted forward to grab my banana. The baby monkey was on my shoulder. I leapt up and
A bit of a stitch-up at PMQs, or so it seemed. The ‘opposition’ leader, Kemi Badenoch, ignored her duty to voters and spent ten minutes feeding softball questions to Sir Keir Starmer about President Zelensky. At issue was Donald Trump’s decision on Monday to withdraw military aid from Ukraine. Kemi meekly asked Sir Keir if
The BBC celebrated one of its own on Monday night. Armando Iannucci was treated to a fawning retrospective by Alan Yentob, and it opened with a crass piece of TV trickery. ‘Armando Iannucci is not an easy man to pin down,’ said Yentob, as if his quarry were a master criminal or an international terrorist.
Nicholas Hytner’s Richard II is a high-calibre version of a fascinating story. A king reluctantly yields his crown to a usurper who wants his violent revolt to seem like a peaceful transfer of authority. This delicate, complex narrative is presented as a boardroom power struggle in corporate Britain. Snappy suits for the dukes and princes.
Strange atmosphere at PMQs. Our MPs seemed to believe that the Commons debate was a vital briefing session for Sir Keir Starmer as he prepares to meet President Trump in Washington. Everyone advised the PM how to handle himself. But it’s far too late. Sir Keir has already grovelled to his new master by pledging
Unicorn, Mike Bartlett’s new play, involves some characters in chairs discussing a sexual threesome. That’s the entire show. Polly (Nicola Walker) is a drunken crosspatch who wants to spice up her loveless marriage to Dr Nick (Stephen Mangan) by bringing a blonde lesbian into the bedroom. Nick, a dithering twerp, doesn’t care if it happens
The Years is a monologue spoken by a handful of actresses, some young, some old enough to carry bus passes. They stand in black costumes on a white stage explaining to us the significance of memory, history and feelings. Then the story begins. The narrator is a precocious chatterbox born in France during the war
Kemi Badenoch has made PMQs her own. Her own what? Her own select committee. That’s how she runs it. She asks long rambling questions that exhibit her knowledge of the subject. Then she hands over to Sir Keir who rambles back at her, taking his time, feeling no pressure to answer. Not much drama or
Oliver! directed by Matthew Bourne is billed as a ‘fully reconceived’ version of Lionel Bart’s musical. Very little seems to have been reconceived. This stylish and dynamic show develops like an unblemished copy of Carol Reed’s film. Fair enough. Punters want comfort, not novelty when they go to see a 65-year-old musical. Billy Jenkins, as
Genuinely, a historic day at PMQs. The plates are shifting. Labour whips spotted that Nigel Farage’s name was on the order paper so they got a house-trained pipsqueak, John Slinger, to give Sir Keir Starmer a chance to launch a pre-emptive strike. Slinger was called first and he asked about Farage’s remark that Reform is
Santi & Naz is a drama set in the Punjab in 1947 that uses an ancient and thrilling storyline about domestic violence. The main characters are a pair of young lesbians who plot to kill Naz’s bridegroom, Nadim, on the eve of the wedding. They discuss stabbing or poisoning him and eventually they decide to
Great stuff from Kemi Badenoch at PMQs. She was entertaining, tricky, probing, unpredictable. If she keeps this up she may attract more Tory members to the chamber on Wednesdays. Many seem to find other things to do. She began by calling Sir Keir a liar: ‘Speaking about the employment bill last week he misled the
Blame Covid. That’s the origin of the BBC’s hit game-show, The Traitors. Workplaces are still deserted as people sit in their kitchens tapping away at their laptops but they crave the drama of office politics. This show lays on conspiracies and intrigues galore. The setting is a quaint old Scottish castle where a random group
The West End’s new political show, Kyoto, can’t be classed as a drama. A drama involves a main character engaged in a transformative personal journey. This is a secretarial round-up of various environmental summits, or ‘Cop’ meetings, held during the late 1980s and 1990s. If you remove the private jets, a Cop summit is a
The Commons was half asleep at PMQs. Trump’s re-election has severely damaged Sir Keir Starmer’s authority. Last summer, he unwisely allowed his Labour colleagues to campaign for the worst presidential candidate in American history. When Kamala lost, so did the Labour leader who now has zero influence over the US. He couldn’t even bring himself
The Tempest is Shakespeare’s farewell, his final masterpiece or, if you’re being cynical, the play that made him jack it all in. Some actors admit that it can be hard to stage and dull to perform. What is it exactly? A children’s fairy tale and a soppy romance with snatches of drunken farce and political
Robots will never replace Sir Keir Starmer. No need. Silicon Valley is already using him as the template for an army of cloned officials to be sold worldwide. The Starmer App was on display at PMQs as he answered planted questions at the start of the session. A tame backbencher said the word ‘train station.’
The Invention of Love opens with death. Tom Stoppard’s play about A.E. Housman starts on the banks of the Styx, where the recently deceased poet is waiting for Charon, the boatman, to ferry him across the water. Charon has been told to pick up ‘a scholar and a poet’ and he’s expecting two souls, not
Finally, we heard it. At PMQs today, the Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, dropped the euphemism ‘grooming’ and said ‘rape gangs’ to describe the networks of predominantly Muslim men who prey on underage girls. Sir Keir tried to defuse the issue in his opening comments by dismissing calls for a national enquiry. ‘The Jay inquiry… [took]
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This week: composer James MacMillan reads his diary on the beautiful music of football (01:11); Sebastian Morello tells us about the deep connection between hunting and Christianity (07:17); Amy Wilentz explains how Vodou fuels Haiti’s gang culture (16:14); The Spectator’s literary editor Sam Leith reviews The Virago Book of Friendship (22:38); and – from the arts pages – The Spectator’s theatre
