In his second round-up, EWAN CAMERON picks excellent solo shows that deal with Scottishness, Englishness and race as highlights
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Czech novel that’s lost in space-time
The Fifth Dimension
by Martin Vopenka
(Barbican Press, ££8.99)
Fiery words from the Bard in Blackpool and Edinburgh, and Evidence Based Punk Rock from The Protest Family
MATTHEW HAWKINS is mesmerised by a performance that dissolves the line between audience and performer
MATTHEW SHARPE recommends the essays of a Renaissance politician that instruct and unnerve after 400 years
GAVIN O’TOOLE welcomes the reissue of a seminal work of revolutionary theory that have genuine relevance in the current context
RON JACOBS rides shotgun with a member of Black Bloc on the wave of anti-capitalist protests of the 1990s and early 2000s
THE FIFTH Dimension is a troubling, comfortless and problematic book for a universe full of reasons.
Against the backdrop of European austerity, Jakub’s career has collapsed. To provide for his family he has accepted a shadowy organisation’s challenge to live in total isolation on a remote Argentinian plateau. If he completes the task and accords with all the various requirements of the contract, including the regular monitoring of his bodily functions, he will receive $200,000. If he doesn’t, he gets nothing.
Martin Vopenka’s novel, translated by Hana Sklenkova, enters into Jakub’s mind and soul as he acclimatises not only to the high altitude but to his state of aloneness and his heightened psychic connection — or maybe paranoia — with his wife and family back in the Czech Republic.
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