ALAN MORRISON recommends a consummate, heart-warming collection about a working-class upbringing in the industrial north-east
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Top Girls, National Theatre, London
Caryl Churchill's classic from the 1980s is a damning indictment of the impact of Thatcherism on women and it's lost none of its relevance
]Superb: Liv Hill as Angie and Katherine Kingsley as Marlene in Top Girls
[Johan Persson]
KATAYOUN SHAHANDEH surveys Iran’s cultural heritage and explains what has been damaged and what could be lost
A dazzling novel, and autobiographical fiction, by Mexicans Brenda Navarro and Cristina Rivera Garza, and poetry by Brazilian Ricardo Domeneck
JONATHAN TAYLOR ponders the difference between autobiography and memoir - between life and story - in Margaret Atwood’s account of herself
Rereleases from Andrew Gold; John McFee, Stu Cook, Keith Knudsen; and The Outer Limits
Five years ago a flash crowd of Glaswegian activists defeated the Home Office and the police; MATT KERR urges you to savour that day in a cinema
IT’S somewhat depressing to watch a play almost four decades old, set in a particularly politically turbulent time in British history, and ponder at the end of it how little things have changed.
But that’s perhaps why Top Girls is one of Caryl Churchill’s most celebrated works, one that has been regularly performed throughout Britain since first written.
The National’s production is a far cry from the play’s Royal Court 1982 premiere, when a cast of six performed all 18-odd roles. It’s one of the first professional revivals to use different actors to play all the various characters and, while this might avoid any momentary confusion for audiences, it doesn’t necessarily do the play justice.
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