DENNIS BROE observes how cutbacks, mergers and AI create content detached from both reality and history itself
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Benefits and otherwise of breaking spatial boundaries
DENNIS POOLE sees a production which overcomes the physical limitations of social distancing to pose necessary questions about the value of space exploration
CONFLICTED: Fehinti Balogun (Bryan), Gemma Arterton (Stella)
[Johan Persson]
SAHAR MARANLOU explores a novella, newly translated and republished in English that tells the history of Iran through women’s bodies
DAVID NICHOLSON applauds the revival of a joyous production that deals with choirs, competitions and communism
New releases from Peruvian Ranil y Su Conjunto Tropical, Leve Leve: Sao Tome & Principe, and South African BCUC
MARY DAVIS welcomes a remarkable documentary about the general strike — politically spot on, and featuring accounts from the strikers themselves — that is available for screenings
MICHAL BONCZA and MARIA DUARTE review The Stranger, Undertone, and Outcome
Walden
Harold Pinter Theatre, London
THERE’S a tangible sense of expectation among the audience as, flashing our test-and-trace app, temperature taken and bemasked, we’re led to our socially distanced seats to witness the live performance of Amy Berryman’s first play Walden, directed by Ian Rickson.
Walden references a 19th-century work by Henry David Thoreau which chronicles his two-year experience of living in the American wilderness in transcendental isolation.
Berryman’s play, set in an environmentally degraded future, has Stella and Bryan living close to nature in a wilderness cabin whose isolation is interrupted when Stella’s twin sister Cassie arrives.
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