DENNIS BROE notes what happens to content when the streaming giants incorporate AI and deregulation into their economic models
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A brilliant performance
LOUIS BAYMAN admires Mike Leigh’s bleakly comic take on a black woman’s experience of depression that offers no easy answers
hard truths
New releases from The Tenementals, Nik Bartsch’s Ronin, and Kuunatic
SCOTT ALSWORTH hears the call to burn down and rebuild the video game industry from the bottom up
The Chinese language only introduced a feminine pronoun in the 1920s. Now, it might adopt a gender-inclusive one, suggests JANET DAVEY
ALEX HALL is intrigued by a detailed history of Gaza that demonstrates its historic resilience and changing economy
RON JACOBS welcomes the long overdue translation of an epic work that chronicles resistance to fascism during WWII
MAYER WAKEFIELD is chilled by the co-dependency of two lost souls as portrayed by German communist playwright Franz Xaver Kroetz
IF you were to ask a computer programme to come up with a title for a new Mike Leigh film it could do no better than Hard Truths.
Echoing the title of his very first film in 1971, Bleak Moments, Hard Truths represents a variation on the veteran British director’s recurrent theme of the delusions that keep us a step away from despair.
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While the group known as the Colourists certainly reinvigorated Scottish painting, a new show is a welcome chance to reassess them, writes ANGUS REID
ANGUS REID recommends an exquisite drama about the disturbing impact of the one child policy in contemporary China
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
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MAT COWARD recalls the communist and pacifist aristocrat whose commitment made a difference in the Spanish civil war, the Blitz and WWII Europe
MATTHEW HAWKINS pays tribute to the performance artist and costumier, Leigh Bowery
The Star's critic MARIA DUARTE is dazzled by an extraordinary performance in a classic Mike Leigh film
PAUL DONOVAN recommends a new, updated production of Mike Leigh’s bittersweet comedy of manners