SIMON PARSONS is discomfited by an unflichingly negative portrait of motherhood and its trials
The formative years of a revolutionary
STEVE ANDREW relishes a history of Lenin’s childhood and adolescence that gives a useful insight his personality
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
Lenin’s childhood
Isaac Deutscher
Verso, £10.99
POLISH Marxist Isaac Deutscher is best known for having penned monumental biographies of Bolshevik leaders Joseph Stalin and Leon Trotsky, the latter running into some three huge volumes.
Whether or not the reader may agree with the perspectives contained therein, no-one could ever doubt Deutscher’s majestic writing style and his lifelong ability for research that was both meticulous and groundbreaking.
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GAVIN O’TOOLE applauds a uniquely nuanced people’s history of the revolutionary period, told from below
ANDREW MURRAY recommends two titles that popularise Lenin as a person and revolutionary theoretician and practitioner
PAUL BUHLE adds historical context to an eclectic and colourful celebration of Lenin
NICK MATTHEWS looks at the great Bolshevik leader’s intense three-week period of furious study in the British Library in 1908 and the timeless classic on Marxism and philosophy it produced: Materialism and Empirio-Criticism