MAYER WAKEFIELD has reservations about the direction of a play centered on a DVLA re-training session for three British-Pakistani motorists
Latest editorial
Towering Rylance at the heart of Dr Semmelweis
SIMON PARSONS recommends a production about a pioneering 19th-century Hungarian doctor that reverberates with contemporary relevance
Dr
New releases from Steve Knightley, Jupiter & Okwess, Jason Palmer, Lisa Knapp and Gerry Driver, Kin'Gongolo Kiniata, Ingrid Laubrock/Tom Rainey, Dan Sealey, Simin Tande, PAZ
JOHN GREEN relishes photography that unfolds a longstanding and poetic relationship with Leeds
A uncomfortably misogynistic authorial voice that sometimes seems to lack insight troubles FIONA O’CONNOR
MARY CONWAY is disappointed by a production that panders – if inadvertently – to Western prejudice against China
JOHN GREEN is fascinated by a history that excavates the enormous role played by agricultural workers in recent times
ALEX HALL recommends a book that places empirical evidence at the heart of understanding racism
Dr Semmelweis
Bristol Old Vic
THE prescient seeds for this thought-provoking and stylish production were sown before the Covid pandemic started and its development has been shaped by the collaborative response enforced by the ensuing restrictions.
Mark Rylance and Stephen Brown have resurrected the largely unknown life of a 19th-century Hungarian doctor who was a pioneer of antiseptic procedures and became known as the saviour of mothers.
Working in the Vienna General Hospital, Ignaz Semmelweis realised that the increasing number of deaths in the maternity ward were related to doctors moving directly from autopsies to obstetrics carrying infections with them.
More from this author
SIMON PARSONS is discomfited by an unflichingly negative portrait of motherhood and its trials
SIMON PARSONS applauds an insightful state-of-the-nation play that explores the growing class divide in South Africa
SIMON PARSONS applauds a tense and thoughtful production that regularly challenges our political engagement and prejudices
SIMON PARSONS questions whether a dark take on Shakespeare’s Seasonal comedy is in harmony with the original text
