GORDON PARSONS is bowled over by a skilfully stripped down and powerfully relevant production of Hamlet
Black and white and Redcar
MIKE QUILLE salutes an extensive body of photographic work that documents, with subtlety and compassion, working-class lives in north-east England
In which we accompany the Bard into Cymru to meet his musical accomplices, young and old
SUE TURNER is inspired by the example of a librarian’s struggle to confront the book-banning movement
ANDY HEDGECOCK relishes two exhibitions that blur the boundaries between art and community engagement
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
Ian Macdonald – Fixing Time
Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art, Sunderland
FIXING TIME is the title of a comprehensive exhibition of 50 years’ work by Ian Macdonald, the north-east England photographer and artist. It takes place across two venues, the Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art and Sunderland Museum and Winter Gardens.
Macdonald’s extensive body of work is dedicated to documenting working-class life, and the rise and fall of heavy industry in the north-east in the last decades of the 20th century. This has been, of course, a period marked by huge political shifts and social upheaval. There are a wide range of themes, including People, Towns and Portraits; Greatham Creek, Teeside; Smith’s Dock Shipyard; Redcar Blast Furnace; and School Portraits.
More from this author
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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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