ANDY HEDGECOCK is entertained by a playful novel that embeds a fictional game at its heart
Latest editorial
Best of 2024: Theatre with Mary Conway
A nervous year, showing that the theatre, like the world, stands on a precipice and seems uncertain where to jump
MASSIVELY RELEVANT: The company in Cable Street
[Jane Hobson]
Death comes for Liberals, entitled murder, Vatican hit squads, and fraternising with the Blitz killer
New releases from Public Image Ltd, William Basinski, and John Luther Adams
GABRIELE NEHER draws attention to an astoundingly skilled Flemish painter who defied the notion that women cannot paint like men
The Bard pays homage to Hull’s finest promoter and venue, and awards Douze Points to Laibach
KEVIN DONNELLY outlines how the bourgeois institutions inhibit our ability to to view art in revolutionary ways, and suggests some tactics to overturn it
THE year 2024 has seen the march of the mighty throughout the world. Right-wing demagogues, warmongers, business tycoons, financial dealers, investors in cryptocurrency, company directors, the rich and famous have not only filled our news but dramatically ridden roughshod over the more real and gritty lives that most of us live… which is why we need the arts to free us from the prevailing dogma and give us voice.
And, while the West End often reflects – rather than challenges – the status quo with its commercially driven subject matter and celebrity casting, it does throw up some gems, while the smaller fringe theatres burst with energy.
Similar stories
MAYER WAKEFIELD has reservations about a two-handed theatrical homage to jazz’s most mercurial musician
Although this production was in rehearsal before the playwright’s death, it allows us to pay homage to his life, suggests MARY CONWAY
MARY CONWAY applauds the success of Beth Steel’s bitter-sweet state-of-the-nation play
MARY CONWAY revels in the Irish American language and dense melancholy of O’Neill’s last and little-known play