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Lloyd Evans

Lloyd Evans

The Spectator

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Fawlty Towers – The Play is the best museum piece you’ll ever see

Fawlty Towers at the Apollo may be the best museum piece you’ll ever see. A full-length play has been carved out of three episodes: ‘The Hotel...

previous day 20

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

There really is no hope for Rishi Sunak

Bad news for Rishi Sunak at PMQs. Caught out by Sir Keir Starmer, he handed Labour a wonderful soundbite for the next election: Rishi, the...

wednesday 20

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

The Arts Council wastes money – and is bad news for art

12.05.2024 10

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

Minority Report is superficial pap – why on earth stage it?

Minority Report is a plodding bit of sci-fi based on a Steven Spielberg movie made more than two decades ago. The setting is London, 2050, and every...

09.05.2024 30

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

Keir Starmer is ashamed of his party

Questions from backbenchers dominated PMQs. Sir Edward Leigh is keen to end unfettered immigration and he announced a way to stop the boats that might...

08.05.2024 20

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

West End / Is John Cleese right that the ‘literal minded’ have killed comedy?

John Cleese appeared in the West End this week. ‘I’ve got vertigo,’ he said as he walked on stage at the Apollo, Shaftesbury Avenue. ‘I cannot...

03.05.2024 20

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

An exquisitely funny sitcom that should be on the BBC

Agathe by Angela J. Davis follows the early phases of the Rwanda genocide 30 years ago. The subject, Agathe Uwilingiyimana, became prime minister on...

02.05.2024 10

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

Lindsay Hoyle is a hooligan

How does it feel to wake up and discover that you’re a socialist? We got the answer at PMQs where the TV cameras were trained on Dan Poulter – or...

01.05.2024 40

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

Cheesy remake of Our Mutual Friend: London Tide, at the Lyttelton Theatre, reviewed

Our Mutual Friend has been turned into a musical with a new title, London Tide, which sounds duller and more forgettable than the original. Why change...

25.04.2024 9

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

Angela Rayner’s staggering admission at PMQs

Angela Rayner stood in for Sir Keir Starmer at PMQs, and she opened with fireworks. ‘They’re desperate to talk about my living arrangements,’...

24.04.2024 40

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

Player Kings proves that Shakespeare can be funny

Play-goers, beware. Director Robert Icke is back in town, and that means a turgid four-hour revival of a heavyweight classic with every actor...

18.04.2024 10

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

Rishi gets witty at PMQs

Keir Starmer came to Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs) with a spring in his step. He announced that he owned ‘a rare unsigned copy’ of Liz...

17.04.2024 10

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

Why has the National engaged in this tedious act of defamation of the Brontës?

The Divine Mrs S is a backstage satire set in the year 1800, when flouncy costumes and elaborate English prose were common cultural ornaments. On...

17.04.2024 20

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

Why has the National engaged in this tedious act of defamation of the Brontës?

The Divine Mrs S is a backstage satire set in the year 1800, when flouncy costumes and elaborate English prose were common cultural ornaments. On...

11.04.2024 9

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

Exhilarating: MJ the Musical reviewed

If you’ve heard good reports about MJ the Musical, believe them all and multiply everything by a hundred. As a music-and-dance spectacular, the show...

04.04.2024 7

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

If you hate the Irish, you’ll adore this play

Faith Healer is a classic Oirish wrist-slasher about three sponging half-wits caught in a downward spiral of penury, booze, squalor, sexual...

28.03.2024 30

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

Dazzling: Harry Clarke, at the Ambassadors Theatre, reviewed

Sheridan Smith’s new show is more a mystery than a musical. Opening Night is based on a 1977 film by John Cassavetes that failed to attract a major...

21.03.2024 8

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

Directors shouldn’t meddle with Shakespeare

Lloyd Evans has narrated this article for you to listen to. A strip club, a prison, a mental asylum, a Great War field hospital, an addiction clinic,...

21.03.2024 9

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

Sketch / PMQs is getting sadder and sadder

At PMQs we saw the next year of politics condensed into a few seconds. Sir Keir Starmer asked the PM why he declined to call an election. ‘My...

20.03.2024 2

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

The price we’ll pay for citizens’ assemblies

Citizens’ assemblies will transform Britain. That’s the promise made by activists from groups like Extinction Rebellion. Labour has also mooted...

16.03.2024 10

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

No life / Why I’m selling my vote to my son

‘How are you going to pay me back?’ This is the eternal question of the hard-pressed dad as he hands £10 to a teenage son with an urgent...

15.03.2024 10

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

As dry as a ghost’s burp: Donmar Warehouse’s The Human Body reviewed

Set in 1948, The Human Body is about four heroic women fighting to create the NHS despite opposition from right-wing extremists led by the ‘snob’...

14.03.2024 4

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

Rishi came under attack from all sides at PMQs

The plot to shoot Diane Abbot dominated PMQs. The Tory donor, Frank Hester, reportedly said that the MP for Hackney North inspired violent thoughts in...

13.03.2024 7

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

Did we really need Warsi and Baddiel’s podcast?

Podcast fever continues to dominate the political airwaves. The rewards for success are enormous and popular podcasters are able to fill concert halls...

11.03.2024 9

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

This play about Hitchcock isn’t worth leaving the house for

Double Feature is a new play by John Logan, whose credits include Skyfall. The subject is movie-making, and the action is set in 1964 in a Hollywood...

07.03.2024 10

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

Even Sunak didn’t think Hunt’s Budget was worth listening to

Jeremy Hunt is the spotty, speccy geek who doesn’t wear specs and doesn’t have spots. But ‘geek’ is very much Hunt’s brand. He’s a gangly,...

06.03.2024 6

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

118 minutes too long: The Picture of Dorian Gray, at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, reviewed

Sarah Snook, who appeared in Succession, takes centre stage in Kip Williams’s adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s only novel. The best thing about The...

29.02.2024 10

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

Who’s more embarrassing: Corbyn or Truss?

Sir Keir Starmer’s advisers have very short memories. At PMQs, the Labour leader mocked Liz Truss for visiting America to ‘flog a new book in...

28.02.2024 6

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

Dramatically riveting and visually superb: Dear Octopus, at the Lyttelton Theatre, reviewed

Big budget, huge stage, massive temptation. The Lyttelton is a notorious elephant-trap for designers who feel obliged to fill every inch of space with...

22.02.2024 10

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

Parliament’s Gaza vote won’t help anyone

The big issue at PMQs today was the motion calling for an end to hostilities in Gaza. In itself this is extraordinary, bordering on the outright...

21.02.2024 10

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

It’s no Jerusalem / Jez Butterworth’s Hills of California, at Harold Pinter Theatre, reviewed

Fifteen years after penning his mega-hit Jerusalem, Jez Butterworth has knocked out a new drama. The slightly baffling title, The Hills of California,...

19.02.2024 6

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

Does Rishi Sunak think Labour is already running the country?

He strutted into the middle of the studio in dark slacks and a creaseless white shirt. Nippy, zestful, ready for anything. Rishi Sunak submitted to a...

13.02.2024 20

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

An unmistakable hit / Till the Stars Come Down, at the Dorfman Theatre, reviewed

Till the Stars Come Down is a raucous, high-energy melodrama set at a wedding in Hull. The writer, Beth Steel, focuses on three female characters and...

12.02.2024 50

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

No life / The reality of food banks

Lloyd Evans has narrated this article for you to listen to. The old man next door asked me to collect his parcel from the food bank. ‘Sure,’ I...

08.02.2024 5

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

No life / The joy of browsing in a food bank

Lloyd Evans has narrated this article for you to listen to. The old man next door asked me to collect his parcel from the food bank. ‘Sure,’ I...

08.02.2024 5

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

Keir Starmer’s shameful behaviour at PMQs

‘Apologise!’ This was the bogus battle-cry that rang out repeatedly at today’s PMQs. Rishi Sunak was asked to genuflect to his enemies and show...

07.02.2024 6

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

Casting an able-bodied actor as Richard III isn’t ‘offensive’

The row over Richard III rumbles on. Disability groups have objected to the Globe’s forthcoming production in which Michelle Terry will take the...

05.02.2024 20

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

Meandering, flat and witless: Plaza Suite, at the Savoy Theatre, reviewed

Plaza Suite is a sketch show by Neil Simon set in a luxury New York hotel in 1968. The play is rarely revived and it’s never been staged in the West...

01.02.2024 8

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

The unexpected star of PMQs is a man you’ve never heard of

Let’s hear it for Phil. The unexpected hero of PMQs was an Iceland employee in Warrington (referred to as ‘Phil’, no surname given) whom Sir...

31.01.2024 7

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

Visually world-class, dramatically second-rate: Don’t Destroy Me, at the Arcola, reviewed

Don’t Destroy Me is the rather breathless title of Michael Hastings’s first play which he wrote when he was just 18. The material draws on his...

25.01.2024 9

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

Has Rishi Sunak already given up?

Sir Keir’s spin doctors have been enjoying clips of Tony Blair’s performances as opposition leader. In the mid-1990s, Blair took aim at John Major...

24.01.2024 20

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

Wit, whittled / How to write the perfect aphorism

I love aphorisms. As a kid I used to pore over my parents’ book of quotations, relishing its gems and treasures like the defiant wit of Palmerston....

19.01.2024 7

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

A beginner’s guide to getting a massage

 The agony could strike at any moment. Daggering pains in my lower back demanded correction. Not just painkillers, I needed a permanent cure. ‘Thai...

18.01.2024 10

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

Duff nonsense: The Enfield Haunting, at Ambassadors Theatre, reviewed

The Enfield Haunting is a good old-fashioned horror show that wants to be a documentary as well. It’s based on a hocus-pocus yarn that made the...

18.01.2024 10

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

Rishi Sunak’s nightmare PMQs

Wow. For Rishi fans, that was one to forget. The Tory leader lacked his usual fluency and focus at PMQs today. Instead of a hungry whippet leaping out...

17.01.2024 20

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

Donmar Warehouse declares war on Shakespeare

Many of today’s theatre directors seem to believe that Shakespeare’s work was a huge mistake which they have a duty to correct. According to Max...

11.01.2024 10

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

Rishi Sunak has nothing to lose anymore

Both leaders seemed pretty chipper at PMQs. With an election likely this year, Rishi Sunak has nothing to lose and Sir Keir Starmer has everything to...

10.01.2024 3

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

Do we really need this unsubtle and irrelevant play about Covid?

Pandemonium is a new satire about the Covid nightmare that uses the quaint style of the Elizabethan masque. Armando Iannucci’s play opens with Paul...

04.01.2024 20

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

Treading carefully / Why are theatres so cowardly?

Looking back at the year’s West End theatre, a few shows stand out. First, the best. Vanya, starring Andrew Scott at the Duke of York’s Theatre,...

30.12.2023 20

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

You’ll want all the characters to die / Infinite Life, at the Dorfman Theatre, reviewed

Infinite Life is about five American women, all dumpling-shaped, who sit in a hotel garden observing a hunger strike. Some of them haven’t touched...

17.12.2023 9

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

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