Chris Searle speaks to bassist PAUL ROGERS
SWEAT
Royal Exchange Manchester
WHAT happens to a working-class community when the major industrial employer shuts up shop? The answer is a lot and it’s not good. Lives fall apart and once-solid friendships fray, scapegoats are sought.
All this is devastatingly explored by Lynn Nottage in her Pulitzer prize-winning play SWEAT. A working-class community built around the steelworks in Reading, Pennsylvania, is shattered as the cloud of poverty hangs over them following the outsourcing of their jobs.
MARY CONWAY becomes impatient with the intellectual self-indulgence of Tom Stoppard in a production that is, nevertheless, total class
From summit to summit, imperialist companies and governments cut, delay or water down their commitments, warn the Communist Parties of Britain, France, Portugal and Spain and the Workers Party of Belgium in a joint statement on Cop30
Politicians who continue to welcome contracts with US companies without considering the risks and consequences of total dependency in the years to come are undermining the raison d’etre of the NHS, argues Dr JOHN PUNTIS
PAUL FOLEY welcomes a dramatic account of the men and women involved in the pivotal moment of the 5th Pan African Congress


