SIMON PARSONS is discomfited by an unflichingly negative portrait of motherhood and its trials
Cultural strategies for communists
FRAN LOCK welcomes a discussion of culture designed to stimulate discussion and help to develop practical campaigns
PAUL FOLEY recommends an extraordinary double bill that packs a punch and leaves you reeling
MARY CONWAY is disappointed by a play about AI that results in a deadening disconnect for its audience
SIMON PARSONS applauds an insightful state-of-the-nation play that explores the growing class divide in South Africa
MATTHEW HAWKINS pays tribute to the performance artist and costumier, Leigh Bowery
SIMON DUFF reviews a new composition by German composer and pianist Florian Weber that blurs the line between where improvisation ends and composition begins
New releases from The Jim Mullen Quartet, Caroline Kraabel/John Edwards, and Matthew Muneses/Riza Printup
Class And Culture: Provocations For Cultural Democracy
Edited by Mike Quille
Communist Party of Britain, FREE
CLASS and Culture: Provocations For Cultural Democracy, is an accessible, galvanising exploration of culture, not merely as the medium through which ideology flows, but as a vital, joy-giving force in the lives of working-class people, and as a potential site of radical resistance.
Poetry Matters by Kevin Patrick McCann outlines not only the way in which working-class people are excluded from access to poetry, but also the methods by which working-class poets are assimilated, defanged and tokenised.
As McCann pithily puts it: “You can be a rebel and attack glaring injustices; just don’t attack the real causes of those injustices. For example, you can attack racism as long as you don't make the connection between racism and the class system.”
More from this author
The phrase “cruel to be kind” comes from Hamlet, but Shakespeare’s Prince didn’t go in for kidnap, explosive punches, and cigarette deprivation. Tam is different.
ANGUS REID deconstructs a popular contemporary novel aimed at a ‘queer’ young adult readership
A landmark work of gay ethnography, an avant-garde fusion of folk and modernity, and a chance comment in a great interview
ANGUS REID applauds the inventive stagecraft with which the Lyceum serve up Stevenson’s classic, but misses the deeper themes
Similar stories
JOE JACKSON explores how growing up black amid ‘the quiet racism of Scotland’ shaped the art and politics of Maud Sulter
MIKE QUILL reports on a lively conference in Barnsley that took stock of working-class access to culture and proposed strategies to embed culture within the trade union movement
JENNY FARRELL traces the critical role that the CPUSA played in the education of Harlem’s greatest man of letters
ABAYOMI AWELEWA celebrates AKINWANDE OLUWOLE SOYINKA, the legendary African author whose work shows the powerful role of the arts in challenging oppression, advocating for justice and inspiring social change