ANDY HEDGECOCK is entertained by a playful novel that embeds a fictional game at its heart
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#AIWW: The Arrest of Ai Weiwei, Hampstead Theatre at Home
Timely revival of play on Chinese dissident
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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
HOWARD BRENTON’S 2013 dramatic treatment of Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei’s arrest and 81-day interrogation has acquired fresh relevance today, as part of Hampstead Theatre's “at home” online season.
With Trump rekindling cold-war embers, this well-tested dramatic formula of mental torture techniques, with the victim subjected to disorientation pressures designed to extort confessions, fits well into the media’s current anti-Chinese narrative.
The central interrogation, first by a fairly amateurish police unit who appear to be bewildered by their unusual prisoner, and then by the political department under military auspices, has a compelling authenticity owing to Benedict Wong’s convincing performance as the victim.
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