MARK TURNER holds on tight for a mesmerising display of Neath-born ragtime virtuosity
Jude the abused
Mary Conway is put through the mill and ultimately enlightened by an unrelenting portrayal of a cruel all-male world
Luke Thompson (Willem), James Norton (Jude)
[Jan Versweyveld] 
ALAN MORRISON introduces a UK poet whose despised daytime occupation provides the subject for his writing
MARK TURNER wallows in the virtuosity of Swansea Jazz Festival openers, Simon Spillett and Pete Long
PAUL DONOVAN recommends three new books that explore the human relationship with nature
Doomed adolescents, when the missing person is you, classic whodunnit, and an anti-capitalist eco-thriller
WILL STONE takes a ticket to indie disco heaven, but misses the rarely performed tunes
A Little Life
Harold Pinter Theatre
If your stomach turns at gruelling acts of paedophilia, man-on-boy rape and the gushing blood of self-harm, this play is not for you.
On the other hand, if you value a brutally graphic, visceral, relentless journey into the dark centre of one man’s soul, you’ll stay and tough it out. It’s an epic tale of almost allegorical significance which rises far above what might initially seem like a catalogue of gratuitous misery.
And James Norton of Happy Valley inhabits Jude, the lead, with a self-effacing and tender display that converts before our eyes to one of sacrificial splendour.
More from this author
MARY CONWAY admires a study of environmental idealism that aspires to Chekhov but is arrested in a deluge of middle-class opinion
MARY CONWAY applauds the success of Beth Steel’s bitter-sweet state-of-the-nation play
MARY CONWAY is blown away by a flawless production of Lynn Nottage’s exquisite tragedy
MARY CONWAY revels in the Irish American language and dense melancholy of O’Neill’s last and little-known play
