MARIA DUARTE, JAMES WALSH and ANDY HEDGECOCK review The Invite, My Father’s Island, Nirvanna: the Band, the Show, the Movie, and Oh My Goodness!
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With Hope, Farewell by Alexander Baron
Seminal novel on working-class Jewish life
PAUL DONOVAN is chilled by the contemporary resonance of Harper Lee’s coming of age tale amidst racism and white supremacy in this excellent production
GEOFF BOTTOMS recommends the unashamedly light-hearted escapism on offer in this stage version of the 1963 film
Full of mysterious religious references and radical sound design, the Scottish duo’s new offering is candidate for album of the year, suggests SIMON DUFF
MARY CONWAY revels in a powerful reminder that human lives are not defined by physical perfection
PAUL DONOVAN recommends the fine performances in this account of the pre-war meeting between the US president and the British king
TECLYN AROD relishes an intimate celebration of jazz improvisation that mixes local and national musicians
IN RECENT times, there’s been a welcome resurgence of interest in the novels of inter- and post-war leftist Jewish writers.
London Books has been leading the way with the revivification of the reputations of the likes of Gerard Kersh and Simon Blumenfeld and now Five Leaves Publications is focusing on the no less impressive output of Alexander Baron.
Baron’s life seemed to mirror that of many second-generation British Jews. Radically left-wing in the 1930s — he edited Challenge, the magazine of the Young Communist League — he went on to front-line military experience in the second world war and thereafter a move into social observation before ending his working life as a scriptwriter on TV adaptations of classics such as Oliver Twist and Vanity Fair in the 1980s.
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