Andrew Lloyd Webber
Scherzinger is superb but why’s the set so dark and ugly? Sunset Boulevard, at the Savoy Theatre, reviewed
Sunset Boulevard is a re-telling of the Oedipus story set in the cut-throat world of Hollywood. Pick a side in…
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…
The coronation music was – mostly – a triumph
Sir Hubert Parry was upgraded from knight bachelor to baronet by King Edward VII in 1902, and my goodness he…
The history of the Theatre Royal Drury Lane is the theatrical history of England
The newly renovated Theatre Royal Drury Lane has seen it all and staged it all, says Robert Gore-Langton
Staged: a handful of VIP events is no substitute for normality
Uncertainty is crippling our cultural life
The true cost of theatre closures
It turns out that if there’s one thing more expensive than making theatre, it’s not making it. Empty buildings haemorrhage…
Theatres can now reopen – but they will resemble prison camps
Auditoriums can now reopen — but they will resemble prison camps, says Lloyd Evans
Why has there never been a hit musical about the history of Britain?
Americans may be able to draw on only 250 years of history, but they’re not shy of making a song…
Tapas but no phantom
I am always surprised to remember that Andrew Lloyd Webber has taste; it must be remembrance of Cats. I was…
I didn’t enjoy it but I couldn’t help loving it: Sunset Boulevard reviewed
Sunset Boulevard is a tale of fractured glory with Homeric dimensions. The movie presents Hollywood as a never-ending Trojan War…
Why most four-year-olds deserve to be sectioned
The first episode of Let Us Entertain You (BBC2, Wednesday) definitely couldn’t be accused of lacking a central thesis. Presenter…
The best of British — from Agatha Christie to the YBAs
Is it true that, having lost an empire, we reinvented ourselves as an island of entertainers? Do we channel the…
Tom Eliot — a very practical cat. Did T.S. Eliot simply recycle every personal experience into poetry?
T.S. Eliot may have put much of his early life into his poetry, says Daniel Swift, but The Waste Land remains a marvellous mystery that defies explanation
Will Marti Pellow attract enough tipsy hen parties to Evita to flog all 18,000 seats?
Tim and Andy are back. Their monster hit Evita opens the fully refurbed and re-primped Dominion Theatre, which is built…
Is John Hoyland the new Turner?
What happens to an artist’s reputation when he dies? Traditionally, there was a period of cooling off when the reputation,…
Tim Rice’s diary: From Eternity to here
Last October, in these very pages, I wrote with what is now annoying prescience, ‘Like almost everyone else in the…
And the prize for most fatuous awards ceremony goes to...
Awards ceremonies grow ever sillier and more self-important
William Astor: My father, his swimming pool and the Profumo 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
