Why is the BBC using Paddington to remember Her Majesty?
Here comes Paddington – again. Earlier this year, to celebrate her platinum jubilee, the Queen agreed to be filmed taking…
Rhapsodic banalities
‘Trans people are sacred. We are divine.’ The first line of I, Joan at the Globe establishes the tone of…
Cell division
The Angel of Prisons dramatises the life of the penal reformer Elizabeth Fry, who lived near Canning Town. She married…
The script is the star
Southwark Playhouse has a reputation for small musicals with big ambitions. Tasting Notes is set in a wine bar run…
Doctor doctor
In a new hour-long monologue, Burn, Alan Cumming examines the life and work of Robert Burns. The biographical material is…
Send in the clowns
Ian McKellen’s Hamlet is the highlight of Edinburgh’s opening week. In this experimental ballet, Sir Ian speaks roughly 5 per…
Hitting the high seas
The Barbican’s big summer show is billed on the website as ‘the sold-out musical sensation, Anything Goes’. The term ‘sold-out’…
All that jazz
Simon Godwin’s Much Ado About Nothing is set in a steamy Italian holiday resort, the Hotel Messina, in the 1920s.…
Divine comedy
Patriots, by Peter Morgan, is a drama documentary about recent Russian history. And though it’s a topical show it’s not…
The unedifying spectacle of Boris’s last PMQs
Today Boris gave his last performance at Prime Minister’s Questions. But was it his last? He left the House hanging…
The real winner from last night’s debate
Last night Channel 4 held a 90-minute live event starring Rishi, Liz, Tom, Penny and Kemi. Not a manufactured pop-band…
Chekhov in a straitjacket
The Southbury Child is a comedy drama set in east Devon featuring a distressed vicar, Fr David, with a complex…
Boris is finally free
A curious atmosphere in the Commons today. Relaxed. Jovial. Almost like a party. There was a bit of aggro at…
Bleak, vapid and banal: why are the Tory leadership videos so awful?
The Tory candidates have released a set of videos presenting their claim to become Britain’s next prime minister. Frontrunner Rishi…
Location, location, location
Roy Williams’s new play is a wonky beast. It has two dense and cumbersome storylines that aren’t properly developed. Dawn…
Boris skewered – for one last time?
A brutal encounter at the Liaison Committee this afternoon. Boris was grilled for two hours by a gang of aggressive…
PMQs was a blue-on-blue bloodbath
Knife crime beset PMQs. It was a horrific blue-on-blue bloodbath as Tory backstabbers queued up to play the role of Brutus…
How to get it all wrong
The Glass Menagerie directed by Jeremy Herrin is a bit of an eyeball-scrambler. The action takes place on a huge…
Tony Blair is too good for British politics
Tony Blair was the headline act at his day-long talking-shop in London yesterday. The crowds attending the Future of Britain…
Bloated waffle
The Old Vic’s new show, Jitney, has a mystifying YouTube advert which gives no information about the play or the…
To boo or not to boo
Are modern theatre-goers too polite?
Tony’s looney tunes
Harry Hill’s latest musical traces Tony Blair’s bizarre career from student pacifist to war-mongering plaything of the United States. With…
A lethal disdain for the poor
Dictating to the Estate is a piece of community theatre that explains why Grenfell Tower went up in flames on…
PMQs: Boris let slip his re-election strategy
PMQs started with a bump. The Speaker called Dame Angela Eagle whose tone was acidic but quietly conversational. ‘This week’s…
This is going to hurt
Some things are done well in the Globe’s new Julius Caesar. The assassination is a thrilling spectacle. Ketchup pouches concealed…
