ANDY HEDGECOCK relishes two exhibitions that blur the boundaries between art and community engagement
Best of 2024: Books
In a year press disinformation, ALEX HALL picks out the best and worst
The Star's critic MARIA DUARTE reviews I Am Martin Parr, September Says, The Monkey, and The Gorge
RITA DI SANTO applauds a touching and witty opener that touches a hot topic in Germany: the future of the immigrant population
SIMON PARSONS is discomfited by an unflichingly negative portrait of motherhood and its trials
PAUL FOLEY recommends an extraordinary double bill that packs a punch and leaves you reeling
MARY CONWAY is disappointed by a play about AI that results in a deadening disconnect for its audience
SIMON PARSONS applauds an insightful state-of-the-nation play that explores the growing class divide in South Africa
IT has been a tough year for very basic assumptions about common humanity and the most fundamental of shared values. The scales have again been forced from our eyes once more as the most powerful nations in the world essentially only endorse power even in extremis.
Most MPs elected this year remain silent on the Israeli genocide of Palestinians, while figures like David Lammy and Keir Starmer appear to think it doesn’t count as a crime. It’s been a tough year for anyone bearing witness to body parts strewn across phone screens, tougher more to observe Israeli soldiers prancing in stolen clothing and stitching children’s toys to D9 bulldozers.
One key outcome of 2024 has been the exposure of the “might is right” system and the nature of zionism. If there is one thing that Hamas achieved it was this exposure of what zionism really is, and which is why amid the carnage it makes sense to get better informed about who did what and why.
More from this author
The phrase “cruel to be kind” comes from Hamlet, but Shakespeare’s Prince didn’t go in for kidnap, explosive punches, and cigarette deprivation. Tam is different.
ANGUS REID deconstructs a popular contemporary novel aimed at a ‘queer’ young adult readership
A landmark work of gay ethnography, an avant-garde fusion of folk and modernity, and a chance comment in a great interview
ANGUS REID applauds the inventive stagecraft with which the Lyceum serve up Stevenson’s classic, but misses the deeper themes
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The playwright and artist reflects on the ways in which reviewing can nourish the creative act
ALEX HALL is impressed by the scholarship of the book but disappointed by its failure to explore in significant depth the ‘why’ of the Gaza predicament
ALEX HALL recommends a meticulous and fascinating academic account of the development of Lebanon’s ‘Party of God’
RUTH AYLETT recommends a remarkable collection that is collective in its grief and serious in its demand for solidarity