RON JACOBS welcomes a timely history of the Anti Imperialist league of America, and the role that culture played in their politics
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Innocents in Mostar
A promising debut that leaves glittering memories but has ducked the politics of the Croat-Bosniak conflict simmering at the time, writes MARY CONWAY
INNOCENTS? Saffron Coomber as Mina and Dino Kelly as Mili
[Marc Brenner]
STEVE ANDREW appreciates a passionate account of the Scottish Club during the ‘lost decade’
By telling the story of a lawless frontier town from the point of view of the Lakota, Chinese labourers, prostitutes and displaced prospectors, makes for a potted history of capital, suggests ALEX HALL
TONY BURKE speaks to Gambian kora player SUNTOU SUSSO
MARIA DUARTE recommends a British boxing biopic about the stormy relationship between Nazeem Hamed and his trainer Brendan Ingle
ANDY HEDGECOCK and MARIA DUARTE review Good Night, and Good Luck: Live from Broadway, Becoming Victoria Wood, Hamnet, and Song Sung Blue
CHRIS SEARLE speaks to Filipino-US saxophonist JON IRABAGON about the threat of AI in the time of Musk and Trump, and how an artist can respond
Old Bridge
Bush Theatre
FOR a play set in Mostar in 1988 and 1992, Old Bridge has surprisingly little to say about the complex allegiances and cataclysmic politics that brought mayhem to this Balkan city at a precise point in the 20th century.
Instead, it is a very personal story of four young people who begin the play as ardent quasi-teenagers (two are 18; two 20) and end it with lives blown apart by terrifying military action that they don’t understand, even less support.
Igor Memic tore this play, which premieres at the Bush Theatre as winner of the 2020 Papatango New Writing prize, from his very guts.
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Although this production was in rehearsal before the playwright’s death, it allows us to pay homage to his life, suggests MARY CONWAY
MARY CONWAY is disappointed by a star-studded adaptation of Ibsen’s play that is devoid of believable humanity
MAYER WAKEFIELD has reservations about the direction of a play centered on a DVLA re-training session for three British-Pakistani motorists
MARY CONWAY is disappointed by a production that panders – if inadvertently – to Western prejudice against China