RITA DI SANTO draws attention to a new film that features Ken Loach and Jeremy Corbyn, and their personal experience of media misrepresentation
Lack of edge disappoints
The play’s quaintness makes it an odd choice for innovative theatre, writes MAYER WAKEFIELD
Barbara Flynn and Robin Soanes as Grandad Bert
[Alex Brenner]
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
We Started to Sing
Arcola Theatre
DALSTON’S Arcola is one of London’s last fringe theatres to reopen its indoor space after two dark years.
They welcome back writer, and in this case also director, Barney Norris to his theatrical home, having had his debut Visitors and its follow-up Eventide staged in the old paint factory in the mid-2010s.
His latest work is perhaps the most evidently personal play I’ve ever seen. In it, he reimagines interactions between his parents and grandparents — “a study of the people whose lives led to mine,” as he writes in his intro.
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WILL STONE is frustrated by a performance that chooses to garble the lyrics and drown the songs in reverb
MAYER WAKEFIELD is gripped by a production dives rapidly from champagne-quaffing slick to fraying motormouth
MARY CONWAY revels in the Irish American language and dense melancholy of O’Neill’s last and little-known play
WILL STONE is impressed by Hania Rani who is already making a name for herself in the male-dominated world of modern classical music