In his second round-up, EWAN CAMERON picks excellent solo shows that deal with Scottishness, Englishness and race as highlights
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There’ll always be an England
MIKE QUILLE relishes political theatre at its most entertaining, engaging and effective
POLITICAL: Mark Thomas in England and Son
[Alex Brenner] 
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
GAVIN O’TOOLE welcomes the reissue of a seminal work of revolutionary theory that have genuine relevance in the current context
RON JACOBS rides shotgun with a member of Black Bloc on the wave of anti-capitalist protests of the 1990s and early 2000s
England and Son,
Summerhall, Edinburgh
He’s done it again!
A few years ago, Ed Edwards exploded into Edinburgh with A Political History of Smack and Crack, performed at the Fringe Festival. It was a brilliant piece of political theatre, setting personal stories of drug addiction in ’80s Britain against the background of brutal Tory policies of deindustrialisation and the historical encouragement of the international drugs trade by the US, Britain and France in the course of their imperialist adventures.
Now he’s back in Edinburgh, together with Mark Thomas, the actor, comedian and political activist, with the equally explosive England and Son, which could well have been called “The Political History of Toxic Masculinity.”
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