The Stone
Royal Court, London
BRITISH playwriting must be in the doldrums. Everywhere you look, it is American plays that are getting audiences excited – from West End revivals of classics such as Arthur Miller’s A View from the Bridge (at the Duke of Yorks) theatre to off-West End arrivals such as the multi-award-garnering Spring Awakening (at the Lyric, Hammersmith). Even the Royal Court, once a powerhouse of British new writing, is increasingly promoting American and European work.
EUROPEAN COMMISSION spokeswoman Valerie Rampi, while the model of civility in her dealings with journalists, is not usually one to get the pulse of cynical hacks racing. Still, she had a damn good try when explaining a security note warning Brussels bureaucrats against being taken in by spies from outside the European Union. “It could [...]
Carl Rowlands says Hungary provides a salutary lesson for the officer class of any party which thinks it has no need of foot-soldiers
Neil Hodge reports on the push to raise awareness of asbestos-related disease
“SOMETHING will have to give”, said the former Cabinet outrider for “new” Labour in the House of Commons on the day of the big rally and meeting to protest against the Government’s proposal to part-privatise the Royal Mail in the face of mounting opposition from unions and MPs.
OUR general election – South Africa’s fourth since the advent of democracy – has been set for April 22 and the campaigning so far has been pretty vicious. Much of the poison, however, has been spread within parties by those jostling internally for positions.
FOR three weeks each summer, I moonlight as a tennis correspondent for a tabloid newspaper. So it was with particular interest that I listened to a speech by Venus Williams in Dubai last weekend. After thanking the tournament’s sponsors and collecting the winner’s cheque for $500,000, the champion, who is as remarkable for what little she usually says as for her prowess on a tennis court, suddenly veered off-message with the waywardness of one of her hapless opponent’s forehands.