MARIA DUARTE, LEO BOIX and ANGUS REID review Brides, Dead of Winter, A Night Like This, and The Librarians
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Acute interest in troubled times
This year's Venice Biennale tackles some of the most pressing global concerns we face today, says DENNIS BROE
Threshold of violence: Shilpa Gupta’s Ominous Gate
![REBELS: Ebada Hassan and Safiyya Ingar in Nadia Fall’s powerful debut feature Brides [Pic: IMDb]](https://msd11.gn.apc.org/sites/default/files/styles/desktop/public/2025-09/round%20up%20web_0.jpg.webp?itok=41xI6jhN)
MARY CONWAY recommends an early Shakespearean tragedy that feels so contemporary that it mirrors our daily news
A ghost story by Mexican Ave Barrera, a Surrealist poetry collection by Peruvian Cesar Moro, and a manifesto-poem on women’s labour and capitalist havoc by Peruvian Valeria Roman Marroquin
DAVID NICHOLSON recommends a dazzling production of Bernstein’s opera set in a world where chaos and violence are greeted by equanimity
MARY CONWAY is frustrated by a new play that loses its drama amid the moral dilemma of re-settling children in the aftermath of WWII
Acclaimed as a masterpiece when it premiered, this study of story-telling in an Irish pub more than lives up to expectations, says MARY CONWAY
SYLVIA HIKINS relishes a comedy that dives deep into Liverpool’s divided loyalties
CURATED by Hayward Gallery’s Ralph Rogoff, May You Live in Interesting Times is the title and organising principle of this year’s Venice Biennale.
The phrase itself, deployed across the political spectrum from as far left as Bertholt Brecht and as far right as Hillary Clinton, references a presumed ancient Chinese curse, although there is no trace of it in Chinese.
The more astute artists on show translate “interesting” as horrifying, blood-curdling and perilous, while others seem to reaffirm Rogoff’s catalogue description of the phrase as “complex” and, in so doing, come dangerously close to reaffirming a virtual utopia or simply wallowing in the chaos that the combination of climate disaster, impending recession and continual appropriation of more resources by the wealthiest have wrought.
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