Jonathan Pie, Eventim Apollo review - spoof reporter in coruscating form

★★★★ JONATHAN PIE, EVENTIM APOLLO Spoof reporter in coruscating form

Tom Walker's creation gives a state-of-the-union lecture

Jonathan Pie is a YouTube star, a spoof television news reporter (created by actor and comic Tom Walker), who is prone to gaffes. It was one of those on-screen gaffes that led to Pie being sacked as the BBC's Westminster correspondent, footage of which we see here on the onstage big screen alongside the highlights and lowlights of Pie's career – mostly the latter.

John le Carré: Agent Running in the Field review - fake news, Brexit and Cold war echoes

★★★★ JOHN LE CARRÉ: AGENT RUNNING IN THE FIELD A sharply contemporary thriller from the master spy writer

Masterly spy writer's latest is a sharply contemporary thriller

That John le Carré! It turns out the agent isn’t so much running in the field as playing badminton. The master of the spy novel, of the foibles fantasies and sadnesses of our imperfect world – with the occasional excursion to excoriate Big Pharma and the like – has produced a magnificent slow burner.

The Cameron Years, BBC One review - quite interesting but a bit boring

★★★ THE CAMERON YEARS, BBC ONE Quite interesting but a bit boring

The former Prime Minister finally opens up about the EU referendum

David Cameron has been a recluse since the fateful days of June 2016 when the referendum on EU membership didn’t go quite the way he’d hoped. He’s probably been living through a private purgatory. “I think I will think about this forever,” he murmured to the camera in this first instalment of BBC One’s two-part doc.

Al Murray as the Pub Landlord, Embassy Theatre Skegness review - comic pulls his punches

★★★ AL MURRAY AS THE PUB LANDLORD Ageing character offers little new on Brexit

Ageing character has little new to say on Brexit

Al Murray's Pub Landlord character has been around since the mid-1990s. As such, it's a wonder that Murray has managed to reinvent the embittered, xenophobic loudmouth so many times, but he has – and the EU referendum in 2016 should have, you may have thought, given the character new life or killed him off altogether.

Diamantino review - loopy satire slaps Brexit

★★★ DIAMANTINO How a childlike Portuguese football superstar turns refugee-saviour

How a childlike Portuguese football superstar turns refugee-saviour

Imagine Cristiano Ronaldo, virtuosity intact, as buffed, blinged, and coiffed as ever, but with the sophistication and sexual maturity of an average seven-year-old, and you have a fair idea of Diamantino’s protagonist.

Vox Motus: Flight, Brighton Festival 2019 review - a novel and moving experience

Astounding combination of theatre and installation tells the wrenching story of two Afghan child refugees

Flight is a show by experimental Scottish theatre company Vox Motus, adapted from the novel Hinterland by Caroline Brothers. It’s about two Afghan child refugees making their way across Europe to the fabled land of “London” and is based very directly on her own interviews with asylum seekers as a journalist. So far, so narrartively straightforward but Flight is unlike anything most people will have seen.

Robert Menasse: The Capital review - much more than just an EU satire

★★★★★ ROBERT MENASSE: THE CAPITAL Much more than just an EU satire

European attitudes vividly counterpointed and characterised in a rich and complex novel

Forty years ago this July, Simone Veil gave her inaugural speech as first President of the European Parliament. She had many issues to include. Peace came first; as a survivor of Auschwitz and the "death march" just before liberation, she well understood why "our Assembly has, whatever its differences, a fundamental responsibility" to maintain it. She also saw the difficulties ahead in holding the centre of European solidarity over and above the immediate national concerns of the Union's members.

Sleeping with Extremists: The Far Right, Channel 4 review - insightful but flawed documentary

★★★ SLEEPING WITH THE FAR RIGHT, CHANNEL 4 Insightful but flawed documentary

Alice Levine follows far right activist Jack Sen with mixed results

It’s always interesting to see how presenters make their presence known in documentaries. Louis Theroux hovers on the sidelines like an ethereal presence, Stacey Dooley connects immediately on an emotional level, and one-time host Keith Allen handled proceedings like a fight before a Millwall game.

Tartuffe, National Theatre review - morality-heavy version of the comedy classic

★★ TARTUFFE, NATIONAL THEATRE Morality-heavy version of the comedy classic

Brexit provides an unwelcome motor for John Donnelly's Molière-with-a-twist

Here's a recipe for a successful National Theatre production: take a well-loved classical comedy, employ an outstanding young director and a talented writer (so much the better if they have a proven track record together) and cast gold-standard actors, including, if possible, someone with a screen presence. What could possibly go wrong? Well, unfortunately, just such a promising mix fails to gel in Tartuffe.

Keith? A Comedy, Arcola Theatre review - Molière mined for Brexit-era laughs

Canny update of a 17th-century classic locates real laughs in today's censorious landscape

Breathe in the love and breathe out the bullshit. After the Arcola Theatre's founder and artistic director Mehmet Ergen read Keith? A Comedy, a wild spin on the quasi-ubiquitous (these days, anyway) Tartuffe by the critic and writer Patrick Marmion, the theatre moved to cast and stage the play in a matter of weeks.