When Irish eyes aren’t smiling
Irish Gothic and Noel Coward romance on the stage, and remembering actress Hayden Gywnne
Back to Blackstuff
The Boys from the Blackstuff hit the stage in Liverpool
A maverick medic
A theatrical biography of a life saver
Moscow rules
The machinations of Russian regime are dramatised in a new play.
BBC embattled in Donmar’s latest
A new production delves into the tense relationship between the BBC and Stanley Baldwin’s government.
Diva and the Dane
The Motive and the Cue at the National Theatre delves into the relationship of an acting power couple.
Revel in Runyon
A classic gem with extra polish
A devil to relish
The stories that tell us that women are damned if they play the game of sexual availability and just as doomed if they don’t
Killer jokes
The Unfriend explores how closely good and evil can live in cosy accommodation
Family troubles
Frecknall’s Streetcar is a commendable, if not stellar outing
Ultra processed arguments
Public health commentators cannot seem to decide what is safe to eat
Resist Labour’s managerial revolution
Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves are grimly committed to expanding the state and entrenching bureaucracy
Peston’s inbox
Kemi wants a correction, and Keir could appear on celebrity TV
The enemy of the Civil Service is my friend
Conservatives should hope that Keir Starmer can weaken its grip on British policy
When geek culture was good
A celebration of Spaced
The danger of naive humanitarianism
The rejection of force is complacent and unsustainable
Noisy decline
Blaring incongruous sound is as much a sign of urban decay as piles of litter
Too many silences in this book about music
The hazy treatment of what “music” even entails falls flat
Why won’t Chris Whitty go away?
He lingers on — a slap-headed Rasputin whispering terrible ideas into the ears of our leaders
October letters
Misquoting Shakespeare and a rounded sense of humour
Alive and flicking
A game invented by a man named Adolph might have been a hard sell to the British public, but it was an instant hit
