RITA DI SANTO draws attention to a new film that features Ken Loach and Jeremy Corbyn, and their personal experience of media misrepresentation
A fortune out of spent pennies
MARIA DUARTE is intrigued by the fascinating tale of a Czech herbal healer who diagnosed his patients by examining their urine
OUTSTANDING: Ivan Trojan in Charlatan
JULIA TOPPIN recommends Patti Smith’s eloquent memoir that wrestles with the beauty and sorrow of a lifetime
MARJORIE MAYO welcomes an account of family life after Oscar Wilde, a cathartic exercise, written by his grandson
KEN COCKBURN guides us through a survey of Chekov’s early short fiction, and the groundwork it laid for his later masterpieces
ANDY HEDGECOCK revels in a hugely enjoyable but deadly serious examination of the 1930s, that is an indictment of our own era
The bard distills our hellish times into fiery words
Charlatan (15)
Directed by Agnieszka Holland
⭑⭑⭑
DUBBED the “oracle of urine,” this fascinating and complex drama set in the 1950s is based on the little known but real-life story of Czech herbal healer Jan Mikolasek, who could diagnose people’s ailments just by looking at their pee.
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