politics
Here in America, Orange Tree Theatre review - Elia Kazan and Arthur Miller lock horns in McCarthyite AmericaWednesday, 25 September 2024
The clue is in the title – not Then in America or Over There in America or even a more apposite, if more misleading, Now in America, but an urgent, pin you to the wall and stick a finger in your face, Here in America.Pre-Trump 2.0, David Edgar’s new... Read more... |
Album: LL COOL J - THE FORCESaturday, 07 September 2024
This album only has one serious flaw: LL COOL J didn’t open it with “OK you can call it a comeback”. Sorry, cheap joke (if you didn’t know, his classic hit “Mama Said Knock You Out” starts with the lyric “Don’t call it a comeback!” and this, his... Read more... |
The Fabulist, Charing Cross Theatre review - fine singing cannot rescue an incoherent productionWednesday, 21 August 2024
On opening night, there’s always a little tension in the air. Tech rehearsals and previews can only go so far – this is the moment when an audience, some wielding pens like scalpels, sit in judgement. Having attended thousands on the critics’ side... Read more... |
The Birthday Party, Ustinov Studio, Theatre Royal Bath review - Pinter still packs a punchSaturday, 17 August 2024
Before a word is spoken, a pause held, we hear the seagulls squawking outside, see the (let’s say brown) walls that remind you of the H-Block protests of the 1980s, witness the pitifully small portions for breakfast. If you were in any doubt that we... Read more... |
Fiddler on the Roof, Regent's Park Open Air Theatre review - dazzling gem of a production marks its diamond anniversaryThursday, 08 August 2024
If I were a rich man, I'd be inclined to put together a touring production of Fiddler on the Roof and send it around the world, a week here, a week there, to educate and entertain. But, like Tevye, I also have to sell a little milk to put... Read more... |
Stevie Van Zandt: Disciple, Sky Documentaries review - the New Jersey rocker with many strings to his bowMonday, 05 August 2024
The music scene on the New Jersey shore in the late Sixties and early Seventies must have been a thing of wonder, a kind of Merseymania-on-Sea. Its mix of soul, R&B and primitive rock’n’roll fuelled countless groups, not least Southside Johnny... Read more... |
Peter Kennard: Archive of Dissent, Whitechapel Gallery review - photomontages sizzling with rageTuesday, 30 July 2024
Peter Kennard: Archive of Dissent at the Whitechapel Gallery includes many of the artists’s most iconic political photomontages. Beginning in the 1970s, Kennard created images that by speaking truth to power, gave protest movements like CND (... Read more... |
Green Border review - Europe's baleful boundaryFriday, 21 June 2024
We’re used to dabs of colour splashing briefly across black-and-white movies – Spielberg’s Schindler’s List or Coppola’s Rumble Fish spring to mind – but director Agnieszka Holland has a new and uncompromising variant on the ruse.The colour opening... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Eddie Marsan and the American Revolution, posh boys and East End gangstersWednesday, 22 May 2024
He’s not the kind of actor who has paparazzi following him around Beverly Hills or staking out his yacht in St Barts, but Eddie Marsan, born into a working class family in Stepney in 1968, has amassed a list of acting credits that your average... Read more... |
Multiple Casualty Incident, The Yard Theatre review - NGO medics in training have problems of their ownFriday, 10 May 2024
We open on one of those grim, grim training rooms that all offices have – the apologetic sofa, the single electric kettle, the instant coffee. The lighting is too harsh, the chairs too hard, the atmosphere already post-lunch on Wednesday and it... Read more... |
Testmatch, Orange Tree Theatre review - Raj rage, old and new, flares in cricket dramedySaturday, 27 April 2024
Cricket has always been a lens through which to examine the legacy of the British Empire. In the 1930s, the infamous Bodyline series saw the new nation, Australia, stand up to its big brother’s bullying tactics. In the 1970s, the all-conquering West... Read more... |
Album: Mdou Moctar - Funeral for JusticeWednesday, 24 April 2024
Despite its title, Mdou Moctar’s new album is no slow-paced mournful dirge. In fact, it is louder, faster and more overtly political than any of his band’s previous discs – not so much desert blues as desert punk.Taking up the twin causes of the... Read more... |
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