DENNIS BROE observes how cutbacks, mergers and AI create content detached from both reality and history itself
Latest editorial
Sidney and the Old Girl, Park Theatre London
Litany of unremitting hatred between mother and son is a real theatrical downer
In oppositional orbit: Nell (Miriam Margolyes) and Sidney (Mark Hadfield)
[Pete le May]
SAHAR MARANLOU explores a novella, newly translated and republished in English that tells the history of Iran through women’s bodies
DAVID NICHOLSON applauds the revival of a joyous production that deals with choirs, competitions and communism
New releases from Peruvian Ranil y Su Conjunto Tropical, Leve Leve: Sao Tome & Principe, and South African BCUC
MARY DAVIS welcomes a remarkable documentary about the general strike — politically spot on, and featuring accounts from the strikers themselves — that is available for screenings
MICHAL BONCZA and MARIA DUARTE review The Stranger, Undertone, and Outcome
EUGENE O’HARE’S play, which gets its world premiere at the Park Theatre, has possibly two of the most unsympathetic characters ever presented in contemporary theatre.
It’s a tour de force but only as an example of how to make an audience feel uncomfortable and unsettled. Presumably, this is the artistic intention of the playwright.
Set in present-day east London, it centres on the relationship between Nell Stock (Miriam Margolyes) and her son Sidney (Mark Hadfield). Confined to a wheelchair, she’s dependent on Sidney who, in turn, is reliant on his mother for somewhere to live.
Similar stories
KEN COCKBURN relishes the memoir of a translator, but wonders whether the autobiography underlying the impulse would make a better book
MARY CONWAY revels in the Irish American language and dense melancholy of O’Neill’s last and little-known play
GORDON PARSONS meditates on the appetite of contemporary audiences for the obscene cruelty of Shakespeare’s Roman nightmare
MARY CONWAY is disappointed by a star-studded adaptation of Ibsen’s play that is devoid of believable humanity