Theatre
Diary
The week leading up to publication is a strange time for any author. You subject yourself to doing everything from…
Diary
Last October, in these very pages, I wrote with what is now annoying prescience, ‘Like almost everyone else in the…
A reminder of the UK energy gap as Putin prepares to put another knot in his pipeline
To have written last month that the headline ‘Kiev in flames’ looked like a black swan on the economic horizon…
An actor’s notebook
It was one of those weeks. On Monday, I was in four countries: I woke up at crack of dawn…
Diary
My surgery has been calling in all those over 75 for a special session with their doctor — a sort…
Notes on a scandal
I was ten when the Profumo affair began at my home, Cliveden. Andrew Lloyd Webber has captured some of the story – but not all
Give me a child…
Mike Shaw on what (and what not) to do when taking children to the theatre
The night I fell back in love with Shakespeare
‘Dad, it’s three hours long,’ says Boy, worriedly. ‘Yeah. And whose bloody fault is it we’re going?’ I want to…
Law in action
As a new production of Twelve Angry Men opens in the West End, Robert Gore-Langton names his favourite courtroom dramas
Let’s hear it for the toffs
This is a strange one. Simon Paisley Day’s new play feels like a conventional comedy of manners. Three couples pitch…
Kissing away kingship
Gregory Doran, now in command at Stratford in succession to Sir Michael Boyd, launches his regime with Richard II, intending…
Dear Mary
Q. I am no interior decorator, but we have a couple of rather subtle paint colours in the house that…
Jimmy and the chocolate factory
One Aldwych, an Edwardian grand hotel near Waterloo Bridge, is serving a Jimmy Savile tribute tea. It is not explicitly…
Bring on the clowns
The Ladykillers is back. Sean Foley’s adaptation of the classic Ealing comedy introduces us to a crew of villains who…
A theatre critic at the school play
‘Another opening, another show,’ sang five-year-old Charlie on his way to school this morning — and then proceeded to belt…
