Back from a mini tour of Yorkshire and Stockport and cheering for supporting act Indignation Meeting
Freeman, Bristol Old Vic/Touring
Timely indictment of unspoken link between institutional racism and mental-health care
Freeman
ALISTAR FINDLAY is mesmerised by this multiple ‘Visions of Scotland’ assault on the audience’s eyes and senses
The Star's critics ANGUS REID, ANDY HEDGECOCK and MICHAL BONCZA reviews I Am Love, The Penguin Lessons, Freaky Tales, The Thicket
MAYER WAKEFIELD has reservations about the direction of a play centered on a DVLA re-training session for three British-Pakistani motorists
New releases from Steve Knightley, Jupiter & Okwess, Jason Palmer, Lisa Knapp and Gerry Driver, Kin'Gongolo Kiniata, Ingrid Laubrock/Tom Rainey, Dan Sealey, Simin Tande, PAZ
Peter Mitchell's photography reveals a poetic relationship with Leeds
A uncomfortably misogynistic authorial voice that sometimes seems to lack insight troubles FIONA O’CONNOR
THIS tightly woven Strictly Arts production, opening with a series of agonising sequences representing the victims’ tormented fates, initially focuses on the 1846 case of William Freeman, a black New York boy wrongly imprisoned.
Suffering from years of physical abuse that left him permanently brain damaged, on release he senselessly murdered four white people and was sentenced to be hanged, despite his lawyer's plea of insanity caused by his brutalisation in prison.
United by their abusive treatment by police and prison warders, the story of the other characters brings the story up to date with the 2016 death of black woman Sarah Reed in Holloway Prison. Debilitated by mental-health problems, her case revealed abject failings within the penal system.
More from this author
SIMON PARSONS is discomfited by an unflichingly negative portrait of motherhood and its trials
SIMON PARSONS applauds an insightful state-of-the-nation play that explores the growing class divide in South Africa
SIMON PARSONS applauds a tense and thoughtful production that regularly challenges our political engagement and prejudices
SIMON PARSONS questions whether a dark take on Shakespeare’s Seasonal comedy is in harmony with the original text
