The Star's critic MARIA DUARTE reviews Sebastian, Four Mothers, Restless, and The Most Precious of Cargoes
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Eat the rich
GEORGE FOGARTY is sickened, amused and stirred to action by a unique community theatre show
theatre
JOHN GREEN explores the argument that psychiatry needs to move away from the idea of just seeing and treating the individual
SYLVIA HIKINS applauds a polemic against “cleanfluencers” and considers radical alternatives to current inequalities of housework
RUTH AYLETT admires the blunt honesty with which a woman’s experience is recorded, but detects the unexamined privilege that underlies it
IAN SINCLAIR draws attention to the powerful role that literature plays in foreseeing the way humanity will deal with climate crisis
High quality pulp, rollicking online murders, Abnorman Britain, and high skates drama: reviews of The Get Off, Everyone In The Group Chat Dies, Pagans and First To Fall
DENNIS BROE notes what happens to content when the streaming giants incorporate AI and deregulation into their economic models
Made in Chekhov
Acting Lab: Perform
Tobacco Factory, Bristol
THE premise is certainly intriguing: a theatrical re-enactment of the entirety of Season 1 Episode 1 of Made in Chelsea. The question is: why?
In the midst of a cost-of-living crisis, in which the working class is being extorted as never before — for rent, for energy dividends, and for wage cuts — it is certainly interesting to get a little window into the lifestyles being funded by the fruits of our enforced philanthropy.
When it first hit the small screen in 2011, Made in Chelsea marked a transitional moment in the developing genre of “Reality TV.” Shows like Big Brother had thrown together people from widely divergent backgrounds and then let the class and intergenerational dynamics unfold as they may. All that went out of the window with Made in Chelsea, which focused exclusively on the lives and longings of a small group of pampered uber-rich twentysomethings.
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