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Lloyd Evans

Lloyd Evans

The Spectator

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A classic Alan Ayckbourn that’s made for Roger Allam

How the Other Half Loves is the play that established Alan Ayckbourn’s name as a writer of farce. Frank and Fiona, a posh, sophisticated couple,...

thursday 10

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

The star of the Fringe

Attention spans at Edinburgh are brief. With thousands of shows on offer, the punters have to make a split-second decision based on the title and the...

20.08.2026 10

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

No life / Confessions of a dog hater

Lloyd Evans has narrated this article for you to listen to. ‘Do you like animals?’ asked the woman at the door, collecting for a zoo. ‘No, I...

19.08.2026 10

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

No life / Confessions of a dog hater

Lloyd Evans has narrated this article for you to listen to. ‘Do you like animals?’ asked the woman at the door, collecting for a zoo. ‘No, I...

19.08.2026 10

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

Theatre / The slow death of the Edinburgh Fringe

The Edinburgh Fringe is getting bigger. Last year’s total of 3,893 shows is surpassed this year by 4,206 productions. More people are coming to...

18.08.2026 10

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

No life / My friend the failure – and the star

‘Altogether Elsewhere.’ The title page of an unpublished travel book caught my eye during a recent clear-out. The author, Matthew Leeming, was a...

15.08.2026 20

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

No life / Confessions of a dog hater

‘Do you like animals?’ asked the woman at the door, collecting for a zoo. ‘No, I hate them, they keep trying to kill me,’ I said. That got rid...

13.08.2026 30

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

The slow death of the Edinburgh Fringe

The Edinburgh Fringe is getting bigger. Last year’s total of 3,893 shows is surpassed this year by 4,206 productions. More people are coming to...

13.08.2026 20

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

Zack Polanski reveals his instant soup politics

Zack Polanski enjoyed a cosy conversation with Iain Dale at the Edinburgh festival yesterday. They sounded and acted like old friends. Dale began by...

09.08.2026 20

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

An enjoyable circus show masquerading as education

Brainiac Live! is a ‘family science’ show based on a popular Sky TV programme. It’s ideal for children under 12 and for mums and dads who want...

06.08.2026 20

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

My friend the failure – and the star

‘Altogether Elsewhere.’ The title page of an unpublished travel book caught my eye during a recent clear-out. The author, Matthew Leeming, was a...

01.08.2026 20

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

The Trainspotting musical is made for cruise ships

Plenty of critics have mocked Trainspotting – the musical (with lyrics and music by Irvine Welsh and Stephen McGuinness, respectively) but the...

30.07.2026 20

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

Theatre / This J. Edgar Hoover musical is destined for Broadway

Here Comes J. Edgar! has a brash poster featuring a cross-dressing FBI agent in fishnet tights with his thighs splayed aggressively towards the...

28.07.2026 30

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

How has Tower Hamlets really spent my council tax?

How does Tower Hamlets spend my council tax? I’ve been shovelling cash at them for 19 years so I strolled along to the new town hall to find out...

25.07.2026 20

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

This J. Edgar Hoover musical is destined for Broadway

Here Comes J. Edgar! has a brash poster featuring a cross-dressing FBI agent in fishnet tights with his thighs splayed aggressively towards the...

23.07.2026 30

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

No life / How has Tower Hamlets really spent my council tax?

How does Tower Hamlets spend my council tax? I’ve been shovelling cash at them for 19 years so I strolled along to the new town hall to find out...

21.07.2026 20

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

A funny, unorthodox Much Ado About Nothing

You may need to do a spot of homework before attending Tilly No-Body at the Arcola. Acted and written by Bella Merlin, the play examines the...

16.07.2026 30

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

How has Tower Hamlets really spent my council tax?

How does Tower Hamlets spend my council tax? I’ve been shovelling cash at them for 19 years so I strolled along to the new town hall to find out...

16.07.2026 30

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

Springwood is a waste of time

Springwood, set in June 1939, looks at a series of tricky meetings between the American president FDR and George VI at the Roosevelts’ family...

09.07.2026 40

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

No life / The day the bishop hit me in the face

The bishop hit us in the face. That was the best thing about confirmation. When I was 12, along with every other boy in the school, I was formally...

07.07.2026 30

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

No life / The day the bishop hit me in the face

The bishop hit us in the face. That was the best thing about confirmation. When I was 12, along with every other boy in the school, I was formally...

07.07.2026 30

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

No life / The day the bishop hit me in the face

The bishop hit us in the face. That was the best thing about confirmation. When I was 12, along with every other boy in the school, I was formally...

07.07.2026 30

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

A Sinatra musical for hardcore fans

Sinatra: The Musical dramatises the star’s career during a minor wobble in the early 1950s. After falling from grace, Sinatra stages a comeback and...

02.07.2026 30

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

No life / Britain’s National Health Service believes in fairness – they treat everyone with equal contempt

Lloyd Evans has narrated this article for you to listen to. Edward Gibbon was troubled by a swelling in his lower abdomen. I have the same condition....

29.06.2026 30

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

Britain’s National Health Service believes in fairness – they treat everyone with equal contempt

Lloyd Evans has narrated this article for you to listen to. Edward Gibbon was troubled by a swelling in his lower abdomen. I have the same condition....

28.06.2026 30

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

No life / The NHS believes in fairness – they treat everyone with equal contempt

Lloyd Evans has narrated this article for you to listen to. Edward Gibbon was troubled by a swelling in his lower abdomen. I have the same condition....

23.06.2026 30

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

No life / The NHS believes in fairness – they treat everyone with equal contempt

Lloyd Evans has narrated this article for you to listen to. Edward Gibbon was troubled by a swelling in his lower abdomen. I have the same condition....

23.06.2026 20

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

No life / My new job at the Amazon packing factory

What will you do if it all goes wrong? I have a back-up plan. Working for Amazon. Its Luton warehouse offers tours to the public, and I went along to...

19.06.2026 20

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

A play that shows Iranian society is like our own

Under the Shadow is a timely drama set in Tehran in 1988 during the Iran-Iraq war. Saddam’s missiles are raining down on the city which puts an...

18.06.2026 20

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

Michelle Terry is ferocious in Brecht’s simplistic tutorial

Bertolt Brecht’s classic, Mother Courage, is about a female war profiteer who drags a wagon of supplies through no man’s land and sells them to...

18.06.2026 30

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

No life / My new job at the Amazon packing factory

What will you do if it all goes wrong? I have a back-up plan. Working for Amazon. Its Luton warehouse offers tours to the public, and I went along to...

18.06.2026 30

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

Michelle Terry is ferocious in Brecht’s simplistic tutorial

Bertolt Brecht’s classic, Mother Courage, is about a female war profiteer who drags a wagon of supplies through no man’s land and sells them to...

11.06.2026 30

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

No life / My new job at the Amazon packing factory

What will you do if it all goes wrong? I have a back-up plan. Working for Amazon. Its Luton warehouse offers tours to the public, and I went along to...

10.06.2026 40

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

No life / My new job at the Amazon packing factory

What will you do if it all goes wrong? I have a back-up plan. Working for Amazon. Its Luton warehouse offers tours to the public, and I went along to...

10.06.2026 30

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

Theatre / Are we ready for the truth about Judy Garland?

End of the Rainbow feels like a prison drama set in London in 1969. Judy Garland is about to give a string of solo shows in the West End and she’s...

08.06.2026 30

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

Are we ready for the truth about Judy Garland?

End of the Rainbow feels like a prison drama set in London in 1969. Judy Garland is about to give a string of solo shows in the West End and she’s...

04.06.2026 30

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

Haphazard and bitty but Rosie Holt is superb: Churchill’s Urinal reviewed

When Rachel Reeves became Chancellor she found a lavatory in her private suite which had been used by Churchill in the 1920s. She vowed to remove it....

28.05.2026 30

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

Theatre / Why is this Tudor drama full of swearing?

1536, by Ava Pickett, is set in a wheatfield near Colchester during the final months of Anne Boleyn’s life. Three peasant women, Jane, Mariella and...

26.05.2026 30

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

No life / Man vs lobster

She was doing a postgrad course in a town by the sea, and a strange thing happened to us one afternoon. On the quayside we saw lobsters being sold...

22.05.2026 40

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

Why is this Tudor drama full of swearing?

1536, by Ava Pickett, is set in a wheatfield near Colchester during the final months of Anne Boleyn’s life. Three peasant women, Jane, Mariella and...

21.05.2026 30

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

Theatre / A Beatles show without the love

Please Please Me is a play about Brian Epstein whose brief and troubled life remains relatively unknown. Tom Wright’s linear script opens with the...

19.05.2026 40

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

A Beatles show without the love

Please Please Me is a play about Brian Epstein whose brief and troubled life remains relatively unknown. Tom Wright’s linear script opens with the...

14.05.2026 40

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

Students of theatrical history will adore David Hare’s Grace Pervades

Grace Pervades by David Hare is a drama-documentary about the life and theatrical work of the great Victorian thesp, Sir Henry Irving. He was a morose...

07.05.2026 50

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

Man vs lobster

She was doing a postgrad course in a town by the sea, and a strange thing happened to us one afternoon. On the quayside we saw lobsters being sold...

07.05.2026 40

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

Almeida’s new Doll’s House is all wrong

A Doll’s House has been reconstructed at the Almeida with a new script by Anya Reiss. Torvald Helmer is an inept drug-addled financier who wants to...

23.04.2026 40

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

No life / My lesson in misery from an anti-AI march

Automation is about to take over the world, apparently. But the fightback has begun. On a cold, blowy day a few weeks ago, I joined a stop-the-bots...

20.04.2026 40

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

Theatre / The National Theatre needs help

In The Print is a docudrama about the bitter war between Rupert Murdoch and the unions in the mid-1980s. Murdoch was determined to computerise the...

15.04.2026 50

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

The National Theatre needs help

In The Print is a docudrama about the bitter war between Rupert Murdoch and the unions in the mid-1980s. Murdoch was determined to computerise the...

09.04.2026 50

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

Self Esteem is the star of this David Hare musical

Teeth ’ n’ Smiles is not quite a musical. David Hare’s 1975 play about rock’n’roll includes a handful of tunes performed by a group of...

02.04.2026 50

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

Don’t miss it: Summerfolk, at the Olivier, reviewed

Dachniki meaning ‘dacha people’ is the Russian title of the National Theatre’s new production of Gorky’s sprawling 1905 drama. Nina and Moses...

26.03.2026 50

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans