Could I find a girlfriend on a Guardian Blind Date?
Was a Guardian Blind Date the answer?
Cheesy skit: A Mirror, at the Almeida Theatre, reviewed
The playwright Sam Holcroft likes to toy with dramatic conventions and to tease her audiences by withholding key information about…
Russell Brand’s gags are coming back to haunt him
It has now officially all gone wrong for stand-up’s sex god. Ahead of Saturday night’s Channel 4 documentary about Russell…
Watch three irascible women screaming at each other: Anthropology, at Hampstead Theatre, reviewed
Anthropology is a drama about artificial intelligence that starts as an ultra-gloomy soap opera. A suicidal lesbian, Merril, speaks on…
Osborne, Balls and a glimpse of Westminster’s rotten culture
Podcast mania continues at Westminster. Discarded grandees from all parties have noticed the success of The Rest is Politics, the…
Lacks any air of mystery, foreboding or darkness: Macbeth, at the Globe, reviewed
Macbeth at the Globe wants to put us at our ease and make us feel comfortable with the play’s arcane…
Like an episode of Play School: Dr Semmelweis, at the Harold Pinter Theatre, reviewed
Bleach and germs are the central themes of Dr Semmelweis, written by Mark Rylance and Stephen Brown. The opening scene,…
Two very long hours: The Effect, at the Lyttelton Theatre, reviewed
Lucy Prebble belongs to the posse of scribblers responsible for the HBO hit, Succession. Perhaps in honour of this distinction,…
Trump, Diogenes, the Mitfords and Malaysian comedy: Edinburgh Fringe round-up
The Mitfords is a superb one-woman show by Emma Wilkinson Wright who focuses her attention on Unity, Diana and Jessica.…
A tragicomic lecture about Gold at Edinburgh Festival
A chilly August in Edinburgh. Colder than it’s been for 20 years and the city looks scruffier than ever. Locked…
Alex Salmond teases a reconciliation with Sturgeon
Even in her absence, Nicola Sturgeon dominated Iain Dale’s discussion with Alex Salmond and David Davis at the Edinburgh festival.…
Mick Lynch is stuck in the past
Mick Lynch, the general secretary of the RMT, has never felt truly English. In conversation with Iain Dale at the…
Bizarre and outdated: Word-Play at the Royal Court reviewed
The Royal Court’s new topical satire, Word-Play, opens with a gaffe-prone Tory prime minister giving a TV interview in which…
Finally an entertaining play at the Royal Court: Cuckoo reviewed
The boss of the Royal Court, Vicky Featherstone, will soon step down and she’s using her final spell in charge…
Forgettable stuff: The Crown Jewels, at the Garrick, reviewed
In the 1990s, the BBC had a popular flat-share comedy, Men Behaving Badly, about a pair of giggling bachelors who…
Roll up, roll up for Ian Blackford’s farewell tour
Ian Blackford, the SNP MP, is to stand down at the next election. And last night he gave an interview…
Kwame Kwei-Armah’s embarrassing update of Love Thy Neighbour: Beneatha’s Place, at the Young Vic, reviewed
Beneatha’s Place, set in the 1950s, follows a black couple who encounter racial prejudice when they move to a predominately…
A naked pamphleteering exercise: Idiots Assemble: Spitting Image The Musical, at Phoenix Theatre, reviewed
Nothing demonstrates the inanity of profanity like an undercooked comedy. The famous Spitting Image puppets have returned in a political…
A play that explains why England’s football team are so lousy: Dear England, at the Olivier Theatre, reviewed
James Graham’s entertaining new play looks at the England manager’s job. Everyone knows that coaching the national side is just…
An unreliable history: When Winston Went to War with the Wireless, at the Donmar, reviewed
When Winston Went to War with the Wireless is the clumsy and misleading title of a new play about John…
Like attending a joyous religious service: We Will Rock You, at the Coliseum, reviewed
One of the earliest jukebox musicals has returned to the West End. When the show opened in 2002 the author,…
Hamlet fans will love this: Re-Member Me, at Hampstead Theatre, reviewed
A puzzle at Hampstead Theatre. Literally, a brain teaser. Its new production, Re-member Me, is a one-man show written and…
Much better than the film: Mrs Doubtfire, at Shaftesbury Theatre, reviewed
Mrs Doubtfire is a social comedy about divorce. We meet Miranda, a talentless, bitter mother, who tires of her caring…
Ugly and humdrum: Brokeback Mountain, at @sohoplace, reviewed
Brokeback Mountain, a play with music, opens in a scruffy bedroom where a snowy-haired tramp finds a lumberjack’s shirt and…
What’s this? A good joke from Sir Keir?
Strange tactics by Sir Keir at PMQs. He raised the issue of broken promises on immigration, which gave Rishi Sunak…
