JOE GILL speaks to the Palestinian students in Gaza whose testimony is collected in a remarkable anthology
Books, Artists, Beats by Jim Burns
An anarchic but never chaotic trip through troubling times
Dark times: Richard Oelze’s 1936 painting The Expectation
MARY CONWAY delights in a rarely performed comedy that recalls a Britain we remember in our bones
JEAN ROBERTS appreciates the way traditional panto can be remodelled into critique of the academy schools system
MARY CONWAY is riveted by a superbly crafted glimpse into the soul of a cast-off US star
MARIA DUARTE is swept along by the cocky self-belief of a ping-pong hustler in a surprisingly violent drama
STEVE ANDREW recommends a lively and often moving guide to once vibrant spaces that have been abandoned or swept away
GEOFF BOTTOMS appreciates the local touch brought to a production of Dickens’s perennial classic
THIS 10th compendium of essays and reviews, cleverly curated by poet Jim Burns, uses texts, art, music and film as springboards for discussion of different periods of cultural upheaval, reflecting change which has benefited writers and artists but at other times threatened their lives and livelihoods.
The majority of the essays and reviews focus on periods of great upheaval in the 20th century, from times of fear to periods of cultural reawakening. They highlight acts of bravery from those who’ve stood up against forces beyond their control, as well as others who have struggled to get their work and voices heard.
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This is poetry in paint, spectacular but never spectacle for its own sake, writes JAN WOOLF
ANDY HEDGECOCK relishes two exhibitions that blur the boundaries between art and community engagement
JAN WOOLF wallows in the historical mulch of post WW2 West Germany, and the resistant, challenging sense made of it by Anselm Kiefer
CAROLINE FOWLER explains how the slave trade helped establish the ‘golden age’ of Dutch painting and where to find its hidden traces