We’ve forgotten just how attractive Jimmy Savile once was

An Audience with Jimmy Savile

Park Theatre, until 11 July

The Motherfucker with the Hat

Lyttelton Theatre, in rep until 20 Aug

Ho hum. Bit icky. Not bad. Hardly dazzling. The lukewarm response to An Audience With Jimmy Savile has astonished me. This is the best docudrama I’ve seen on stage. From the early 1970s, Britain swooned before Savile. Marketing pollsters found him the country’s best-loved celeb (bar the Queen Mum). He enforced his influence by winning over several establishments at once, the royals, the Beeb, the NHS, the media, the charity sector, Westminster.

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TaggedAlistair McGowan, David Mamet, Jimmy Savile, Jonathan Maitland, Lyttleton Theatre, Motherfucker with the Hat, Park Theatre, Stephen Adly Guirgis, Stoke Mandeville Hospital, Theatre

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We’ve forgotten just how attractive Jimmy Savile once was

Jonathan Maitland’s new play, An Audience with Jimmy Savile at the Park, reminds us that Machiavelli had nothing on Savile. And Motherfucker with the Hat at the Lyttleton may be a Mamet knock-off but it’s a hit with the punters

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