RITA DI SANTO draws attention to a new film that features Ken Loach and Jeremy Corbyn, and their personal experience of media misrepresentation
Best of 2018: Music
By PETER MASON
Inspired: Mavis Staples
[Jalylah Burrrell/Creative Commons]
JULIA TOPPIN recommends Patti Smith’s eloquent memoir that wrestles with the beauty and sorrow of a lifetime
MARJORIE MAYO welcomes an account of family life after Oscar Wilde, a cathartic exercise, written by his grandson
KEN COCKBURN guides us through a survey of Chekov’s early short fiction, and the groundwork it laid for his later masterpieces
ANDY HEDGECOCK revels in a hugely enjoyable but deadly serious examination of the 1930s, that is an indictment of our own era
The bard distills our hellish times into fiery words
I SAW three-piece Serbian band Igralom by accident on a visit to the Bulgarian capital Sofia a few months ago, when they were supporting all-action outfit New Zealand outfit The Cavemen on what was billed as a punk night.
Although the headliners justified the punk tag, it would be a stretch to place Igralom in the same field. The publicity material for their second album Pogrena Poznanstva, which they were showcasing on the night, described them as playing “psychedelic-trans-blues” and, as far as labels go, that seemed to do a better job
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