Starmer’s weaknesses are on show at PMQs
Keir-mania. Is it possible? Can we imagine it? Stadiums full of besotted voters chanting his name in frenzies of adoration.…
No laughing matter
The RSC’s 2014 version of Much Ado is breathtaking to look at. Sets, lighting and costumes are exquisitely done, even…
Racial sensitivity training turned me into a confused racist
The Black Lives Matter movement has put racial sensitivity at the top of the agenda. A new atmosphere of moral…
The Bard in the bedroom
Nicholas Hytner’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream opens in a world of puritanical austerity. The cast wear sombre black costumes and…
Chekhov by Zoom
The Beeb has released Simon Godwin’s Hamlet staged by the RSC in 2016. The director makes one major change and…
Mad for it
The longest interval in theatre history continues. Last week the National Theatre livestreamed a 2018 version of The Madness of…
Keir Starmer has no idea how to use normal language
A testy, ill-tempered PMQs. Sir Keir Starmer began by welcoming the anti-viral breakthrough achieved by British scientists. He got an…
Walnut whips and Stafford Cripps
The National Theatre’s programme of livestreamed shows continues with the Donmar’s 2014 production of Coriolanus starring Tom Hiddleston. The play…
Good grief
Sea Wall, by Simon Stephens, is a half-hour monologue about grief performed by Andrew Scott. The YouTube clip has been…
Cobweb-thin
Hats off to the Lawrence Batley Theatre for producing a brand-new full-length show on-line. Stephen Fry, with avuncular fruitiness, narrates…
Macbeth at the movies
The world’s greatest playwright ought to be dynamite at the movies. But it’s notoriously hard to turn a profit from…
Keir Starmer’s big weakness was exposed at PMQs
It has come down to a classroom contest. The swot versus the wag. The smart Alec against the rugger captain.…
Pinch and a punch
The National’s bizarre livestreaming service continues. On 7 May, for one week only, it released a modern-dress version of Antony…
Withdrawal symptoms
A TV play by Tom Stoppard, A Separate Peace, was broadcast live on Zoom last Saturday. I watched as my…
No q for the toilet
‘Enjoy world-class theatre online for free,’ announces the National Theatre. Every Thursday at 7 p.m. a play from the archive…
Turns of the century
Not looking great, is it? Until we all get jabbed, theatres may have to stay closed. And even the optimists…
Within these walls
High Tide got there first. The East Anglian theatre company has produced a series of lockdown mini-dramas, Love in the…
Separation anxiety
Theatres have taken to the internet like never before. Recorded performances are being made available over the web, many for…
Rules of engagement
With theatres shut, radio must lighten the darkness. The Guilty Feminist is a wildly popular podcast performed by Deborah Frances-White…
Closing time
War and plague have menaced theatres before, but rarely on this scale, says Lloyd Evans
The inside story
On Blueberry Hill sounds like a musical but it’s a sombre prison drama set in Ireland. Two bunkbeds. Above, an…
The two gentlemen of corona
Boris Johnson’s medical wingmen
Secrets and spies
Here’s the problem. Much communication is done online, especially by youngsters, and much drama focuses on communication. So how do…
Pyramid of piffle
The Prince of Egypt is a musical adapted from a 1998 Dreamworks cartoon based on the Book of Exodus. So…
Changing the bard
A Moorish princess shipwrecked on the English coast disguises herself as a boy to protect her virtue. Arriving in London,…
