New arrivals
What happens to Afghan migrants when they reach the UK?
Unbowed Boris has put his Tory rivals in their places
Boris was resurgent at PMQs today. He sprinkled scorn, merriment and mischief in all directions. He even boasted that last…
Tiger feat
Yann Martel’s novel Life of Pi is a complicated organism. The action starts in southern India where we meet a…
PMQs: Boris’s nadir
The bombshell at bay. That’s how Boris looked at today’s PMQs. Deflated, cornered, winded and lifeless. Gone were the chuckles…
The National is the graveyard of talent
Somewhere in the wilds of England a stately home is collapsing. Rising floodwaters threaten the foundations. Storms break over the…
Donald Trump understands how Prince Harry’s mind works
Last night Nigel Farage delivered the shortest hour-long interview in TV history. GB News had cleared 60 minutes of the…
Guilt-free hilarity
World-class sex bomb Janie Dee stars in a fabulously silly revival of the American comedy Vanya and Sonia and Masha…
The Guinea Pig club
Lloyd Evans on a musical that tells the story of the pioneering maverick whose methods for treating disfigured second world war airmen revolutionised plastic surgery
In a class of its own
Mike Leigh’s classic, Abigail’s Party, has been revived under the direction of Vivienne Garnett. The script is a guilty secret…
Screwball Austen
Let’s be honest. Jane Austen is popular because War and Peace doesn’t fit inside a handbag. Austen’s best-loved novel, Pride…
On tap
Why pub theatres are thriving
A call to arms
’night, Mother is a two-hander that opens like a comedy sketch. ‘I’m going to kill myself, Mama,’ says Jessie. She’s…
How to stop another Grenfell
Scenes from the Grenfell Inquiry is a gripping, horrifying drama. Nicolas Kent and Richard Norton-Taylor have sifted through the public…
Would the real Rishi Sunak please stand up?
It was a tale of two chancellors at today’s high-spending Budget. Rishi Sunak began by embracing the big-state profligacy pursued…
Too much bawl and shriek
Yaël Farber’s Macbeth sets out to be a great work of art. The director crams the Almeida’s stage with suggestive…
Simply Shakespeare
Here goes. The Young Vic’s Hamlet, directed by Greg Hersov, is a triumph. This is a pared-back, plain-speaking version done…
Remaking history
The Normal Heart is not about Aids. Larry Kramer’s play is set in New York in 1981 at a time…
A script to raise whirlwinds
Boy meets girl. Girl gets pregnant. Then the entire world collapses. That’s the story of Camp Siegfried, which is set…
Labour’s bid to lose the next election has begun
Sir Keir stamped the Labour conference with his personality today. And the mark he left was very bland, vague and…
Phantom thread
Blithe Spirit is a comedy with the plot of a horror story. Charles, a middle-aged novelist, lives happily with his…
Cold spell
Frozen the musical declares war on woke politics. The 2013 Disney movie has been turned into a song-and-dance show that…
Tsunami of piffle
Deep breath. Here goes. Winsome Pinnock’s new play about Turner opens with one of the most confusing and illogical scenes…
Rottweilers in frocks
It’s a rum beast the new Andrew Lloyd Webber musical. Cinderella is set in Belleville, a European city of 18th-century…
Screech, howl, yelp, crash
The new Lily Allen vehicle opens in a spruced-up terrace in the East End. Allen plays a self-satisfied yuppie, Jenny,…
What a farce
Lloyd Evans talks to Nigel Planer about the death of comedy theatre — and how he’s trying to revive it
