The Star's critics ANDY HEDGECOCK, MARTIN HALL, MICHAL BONCZA, ANGUS REID reviews Holy Cow, One to One: John and Yoko, King of Kings, Panda Bear in Africa
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Placing a finger on Welshness
A fascinating and timely collection of essays on identity, writes GAVIN O’TOOLE
W
PATRICK JONES recommends a vital anthology from Afghan and Iranian poets where the political and personal fuse into witness-bearing and manifesto-making
WILL STONE is impressed by Hania Rani who is already making a name for herself in the male-dominated world of modern classical music
MIK SABIERS enjoys the theatrical feminist six piece who have a lot of fun that the audience feeds off as the set rolls on
New releases from Ibex Band, Lucy Dacus, and Various Artists
MARY CONWAY is disappointed by characters so un-nuanced as to be unreal, a stereotypical plot and a conceptual vampire
WILL STONE appreciates an artist who can swerve from industrial noise to clubby trance pop without missing a step
Welsh [Plural]: Essays on the Future of Wales
Edited by Darren Chetty, Hanan Issa, Grug Muse and Iestyn Tyne
Repeater Books £12.99
IN 1987 as a young reporter on the Western Mail – the self-proclaimed “national” newspaper of Wales – I was tasked with travelling the length of the A470 trunk road joining Cardiff in the south to Llandudno in the north.
It’s an iconic route to the Welsh, arising from the Mail’s own campaign in the 1970s for a single road connecting the country.
I suspect the news editor at the time had other motives – this man could not stand the upstart Cockney in his newsroom, a non-indigenous insult to Welsh journalism, and wanted me out of the office.
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