STEVE JOHNSON recommends a protest album with a harder edge than many in the genre
A sharply written and beautifully performed piece of drama
SIMON PARSONS recommends an innovatory production that addresses the tragedies of Northern Ireland’s recent history
EXCELLENT: (L to R) Cormac Elliott, Kate Reid, Rachael Rooney and Aoife Kennan
[Mark Douet] 
DENNIS BROE finds much to praise in the new South African Netflix series, but wonders why it feels forced to sell out its heroine
CARL DEATH introduces a new book which explores how African science fiction is addressing climate change
In his second round-up, EWAN CAMERON picks excellent solo shows that deal with Scottishness, Englishness and race as highlights
Fiery words from the Bard in Blackpool and Edinburgh, and Evidence Based Punk Rock from The Protest Family
MATTHEW HAWKINS is mesmerised by a performance that dissolves the line between audience and performer
MATTHEW SHARPE recommends the essays of a Renaissance politician that instruct and unnerve after 400 years
The 4th Country
Park Theatre
THE group behind this little gem of a production, Plain Heroines, are a female-led company whose mission statement is to make funny plays about difficult subjects and this production does exactly that.
Set in Northern Ireland, the play explores how the tragedies of their recent history, still haunting the present, can be dramatised honestly and effectively and specifically how a play can do justice to the Bloody Sunday victims and their relatives and those who suffered under Northern Ireland’s rigidly cruel abortion laws.
The writer and actress Kate Reid has structured the piece around four interconnected lives and the actors who are trying to play those parts. Stylistically, she uses a light touch and metatheatre to spotlight historic grievances. Out-of-role discussions on alternate structures and approaches to the drama punctuate a largely naturalistic narrative of a family struggling to escape the shadows of the past.
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