MARIA DUARTE recommends a remarkable study of the friendship between a Palestinian and a Pakistani, broken by a hostile state
Cable Street, a new musical
Southwark Playhouse
THIS retelling of an iconic story manages to be exuberant and inspirational, while delivering a chilling reminder of the easy rise of the far right.
The Battle of Cable Street defined an era; as Franco, Mussolini and Hitler savaged democracy, Britain’s own tin-pot dictator, Oswald Mosley, targeted the East End. Some 5,000 zealots from the British Union of Fascists (BUF), with a buffer zone of 6,000 police, would be confronted by 300,000 anti-fascists.
A champion motorcyclist, trade union organiser and communist, Clem Beckett went from Britain’s speedway tracks to the battlefields of Spain, where he gave his life resisting Franco’s forces at Jarama. GEOFF BOTTOMS pays tribute to this remarkable anti-fascist
CJ ATKINS commemorates one of the most dramatic moments in working-class history
MAYER WAKEFIELD has reservations about a two-handed theatrical homage to jazz’s most mercurial musician



