MAYER WAKEFIELD has reservations about the direction of a play centered on a DVLA re-training session for three British-Pakistani motorists
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Unique wedding woes
TOM KING sees a bitter-sweet musical, the first ever about a gay marriage
PIC CAP Passionate partners: Tyrone Huntley (left) and Billy Cullum in Leave to Remain Pic: Helen Maybanks
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
Leave to Remain
Lyric Theatre Hammersmith
AS A musical, Leave to Remain treads familiar ground.
The young Alex and Obi meet and fall in love before their respective pasts catch up with them, throwing their future together into doubt. But the fact that they’re both gay gives what would otherwise be a fairly hackneyed story some interesting new dimensions in Matt Jones and Kele Okereke's work.
The plot thickens when Alex (Billy Cullum), a US citizen whose visa is dependent on his work, announces he must leave Britain and follow his company to the UAE, effectively calling time on the couple's new and thrilling romance. The only way Alex can stay and be granted “leave to remain” is for he and Obi (Tyrone Huntley) to marry.
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