Borrowed Time: Lennon’s Last Decade, Parthenope, Where Dragons Live and Thunderbolts* reviewed by MICHAL BONCZA and MARIA DUARTE
Making a drama out of a crisis
Playwright MARK RAVENHILL talks to Tom King about how the lockdown and its impact on care homes has been the catalyst for his new radio play
(L to R) Angela Ravenhill in 2005; (top right) Mark Ravenhill; (Bottom right) Ravenhill as a baby in 1967 with his mother Angela and his father Ted
CHRIS SEARLE wallows in an evening of high class improvised jazz, and recommends upcoming highlights in May
MARY CONWAY applauds the revival of a tense, and extremely funny, study of men, money and playing cards
MEHDI ACHOUCHE explores the constant fascination of cinema with Marxist alienation from Fritz Lang and Chaplin to Bong Joon Ho
FIONA O’CONNOR steps warily through a novel that skewers many of the exposed flanks of the over-privileged
MARY CONWAY applauds the study of a dysfunctional family set in an Ireland that could be anywhere
MICK MCSHANE is roused by a band whose socialism laces every line of every song with commitment and raw passion
THEATRE remains in crisis. Some have maintained an online presence through streamed and distanced productions but most have remained closed for over a year.
Even when the Luftwaffe was carpet-bombing London, intrepid theatregoers embodied the “blitz spirit” by attending productions frequently interrupted by air-raid sirens. But that threat — albeit severe — was from without and easy to identify. Now, invisible, it is among us.
When I spoke to playwright Mark Ravenhill, whose new production Angela has just been launched as a radio drama, he pointed out that the last time venues in the capital were shut for such a long time was in 1665, when the Great Plague was tearing through the city.
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