ANDY HEDGECOCK relishes two exhibitions that blur the boundaries between art and community engagement
Fancy a TV binge?
Among upcoming TV series available globally, DENNIS BROE picks out the good, the bad and the interesting
The Star's critic MARIA DUARTE reviews I Am Martin Parr, September Says, The Monkey, and The Gorge
RITA DI SANTO applauds a touching and witty opener that touches a hot topic in Germany: the future of the immigrant population
SIMON PARSONS is discomfited by an unflichingly negative portrait of motherhood and its trials
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
The Good:
Machine (ARTE/Amazon Prime)
This series, written by Thomas Bidegain (A Prophet), currently available to be streamed for free on the Arte website, crosses the always vibrant French social realist tradition with kung fu sequences.
A young woman, escaped most likely from the French military, hiding out in a small town and counselled by a Marxist worker of colour, combats factory goons intent on breaking a strike in support of keeping the factory in France instead of the buyer’s intention of moving it to Poland to save money.
The male-female camaraderie and the concealed power of the female combatant echoes the Gina Davis/Samuel L Jackson film The Long Kiss Goodnight and makes for a compelling ride.
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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
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