MARIA DUARTE, LEO BOIX and ANGUS REID review Brides, Dead of Winter, A Night Like This, and The Librarians
‘Throwing shade’ on Gandhi
MAYER WAKEFIELD recommends a play which asks who is allowed to be radical and what does radicalisation really mean in a world overflowing with injustice?
POLAR OPPOSITES: Safiyya Ingar and Anoushka Chadha
[Alex Brenner] ![REBELS: Ebada Hassan and Safiyya Ingar in Nadia Fall’s powerful debut feature Brides [Pic: IMDb]](https://msd11.gn.apc.org/sites/default/files/styles/desktop/public/2025-09/round%20up%20web_0.jpg.webp?itok=41xI6jhN)
MARY CONWAY recommends an early Shakespearean tragedy that feels so contemporary that it mirrors our daily news
A ghost story by Mexican Ave Barrera, a Surrealist poetry collection by Peruvian Cesar Moro, and a manifesto-poem on women’s labour and capitalist havoc by Peruvian Valeria Roman Marroquin
DAVID NICHOLSON recommends a dazzling production of Bernstein’s opera set in a world where chaos and violence are greeted by equanimity
MARY CONWAY is frustrated by a new play that loses its drama amid the moral dilemma of re-settling children in the aftermath of WWII
Acclaimed as a masterpiece when it premiered, this study of story-telling in an Irish pub more than lives up to expectations, says MARY CONWAY
SYLVIA HIKINS relishes a comedy that dives deep into Liverpool’s divided loyalties
Two Billion Beats
Orange Tree Theatre
WHEN the only two items in the programme are biographies of BR Ambedkar and Sylvia Pankhurst, you know you are in for a production packed with revolutionary fervour and Two Billion Beats delivers in compassionate, understated fashion.
Asha (Safiyya Ingar) and her younger sister, Bettina (Anoushka Chadha), are polar opposites. While the fiery sixth former Asha is fuelled by ideas and dreaming of studying at SOAS, her sibling is the embodiment of adolescent vulnerability and saving up her lunch money to buy a hamster.
They struggle to connect as the single-minded Asha would rather keep her nose tucked inside the works of Arundhati Roy than placate the needy overtures of her admiring little sister.
Writing her latest essay, Asha has immersed herself in the struggle for Indian liberation and the life of Ambedkar, including his many battles with Gandhi. Ingar brings their 1936 “boxing match” over the issue of caste to life, springing around the stage with jabs and uppercuts abounding.
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