Girls aloud
The age of ‘ladies first’ is back. Phyllida Lloyd reserves all the roles for the weaker sex, as I imagine…
Sister act
First, a bit of background. Conquering Agamemnon slew his daughter, Iphigenia, in return for a fair wind to Troy. This…
The Tim and Andy show
Tim and Andy are back. Their monster hit Evita opens the fully refurbed and re-primped Dominion Theatre, which is built…
Nobs and numbskulls
Suppose Charles were to reign as a meddlesome, self-pitying, indecisive plonker. It’s a thought. It’s now a play, too, by…
Bad bad acting
It’s taken a while but here it is. The Play That Goes Wrong is like Noises Off, but simpler. Michael…
Independence blues
Referendum fever reaches Stratford East. Spoiling, by John McCann, takes us into the corridors of power in Holyrood shortly after…
Bent bureaucrats and bakers
Eye of a Needle, by newcomer Chris MacDonald, looks at homosexuality and asylum. Gays from the Third World, who’ve suppressed…
Dolts, doormats and FGM
Wow. What an experience. A 1991 movie named Dogfight has spawned a romantic musical. We’re in San Francisco in 1963.…
State of independence
Lloyd Evans tours the Edinburgh Festival in search of clues about the outcome of the referendum
Edinburgh round-up
Let’s start with a nightmare. Wendy Wason, an Edinburgh comedienne, travelled to LA last year accompanied by her husband, who…
Festival picks
Rain whimpers from Edinburgh’s skies. The sodden tourists look like aliens in their steamed-up ponchos as they scurry and rustle…
In a spin
Streetcar. One word is enough to conjure an icon. Tennessee Williams’s finest play, written in the 1940s, is about a…
Edinburgh rocks
And they’re off. The mighty caravan of romantic desperadoes, radical egoists, stadium wannabes, struggling superstars and vanity crackheads is on…
Edinburgh rocks
And they’re off. The mighty caravan of romantic desperadoes, radical egoists, stadium wannabes, struggling superstars and vanity crackheads is on…
Edinburgh rocks
And they’re off. The mighty caravan of romantic desperadoes, radical egoists, stadium wannabes, struggling superstars and vanity crackheads is on…
There will be blood
Carrie Cracknell’s new version of Medea strikes with overwhelming and rather puzzling force. The royal palace has been done up…
North and south
Torben Betts, head boy at Alan Ayckbourn’s unofficial school of apprentices, has written at least a dozen plays I’ve never…
A cruel blast
Mr Bean, one of our greatest comic exports, has an alter ego. The second Mr Bean, forename Richard, is the…
Going Global
Isn’t it time we asked the National Theatre to support itself? Lloyd Evans says yes
Same old ground
Hampstead’s new play about the 1984 miners’ strike was nearly defeated by technical glitches. Centre stage in Ed Hall’s production…
Going Global
Listen http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_10_July_2014_v4.mp3 Two glorious playhouses grace the south bank of the Thames. Shakespeare’s Globe and the National Theatre stage the…
Going Global
Listen http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_10_July_2014_v4.mp3 Two glorious playhouses grace the south bank of the Thames. Shakespeare’s Globe and the National Theatre stage the…
Over the top
Fashion Victim — the Musical!. There’s a title that’s been waiting to be used for ages. The Cinema Museum is…
Talking shop
Nice one, Roy. Across the West End secret toasts are being drunk to the England supremo for his exquisitely crafted…
His dark materials
Alex Jennings, the new Willy Wonka, tells Lloyd Evans why Dahl’s ‘misanthropic world’ is fascinating to inhabit
