ANDY HEDGECOCK is entertained by a playful novel that embeds a fictional game at its heart
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What we were – and still are
The Globe Theatre's productions of Shakespeare's history plays show how acutely they mirror a divided country, says MARY CONWAY
Explosive: Michelle Terry as Hotspur
[Tristram Kenton]
Death comes for Liberals, entitled murder, Vatican hit squads, and fraternising with the Blitz killer
New releases from Public Image Ltd, William Basinski, and John Luther Adams
GABRIELE NEHER draws attention to an astoundingly skilled Flemish painter who defied the notion that women cannot paint like men
The Bard pays homage to Hull’s finest promoter and venue, and awards Douze Points to Laibach
KEVIN DONNELLY outlines how the bourgeois institutions inhibit our ability to to view art in revolutionary ways, and suggests some tactics to overturn it
SHAKESPEARE was not a king nor even a man in power. He was a jobbing playwright whose itinerant lifestyle allowed him to observe life in high and low places and to use the fads and foibles of the world at large as fodder for his incomparable talents.
His history plays, timeless favourites on the British stage, sometimes appear as immutable period pieces and often they are brandished like the Union Jack to incite nationalism.
But, always, they explore the fragility of the crown and its quest for power.
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Although this production was in rehearsal before the playwright’s death, it allows us to pay homage to his life, suggests MARY CONWAY
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