New releases from The Jim Mullen Quartet, Caroline Kraabel/John Edwards, and Matthew Muneses/Riza Printup
Hit and miss
DAVID NICHOLSON samples two plays – one funny, one unfunny – that will open at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe
JAN WOOLF wallows in the historical mulch of post WW2 West Germany, and the resistant, challenging sense made of it by Anselm Kiefer
ANA ISABEL NUNES points to the empowering legacy of Augusto Boal’s Theatre Of The Oppressed
CARLOS MARTINEZ welcomes the publication of the writings of the great Palestinian author, political theorist and spokesman for the PFLP
The Star's critic MARIA DUARTE review Cottontail, Memoir of a Snail, Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy, and Captain America: Brave New World
PAUL DONOVAN is fascinated by an account of the long history of Catholic Church’s involvement in espionage
ROGER McKENZIE welcomes an important contribution to the history of Africa, telling the story in its own right rather than in relation to Europeans
Moscow Love Story/Polly and Esther
Sherman Theatre, Cardiff
TWO drag acts, Polly and Esther (★★★★), trying out their material in Cardiff before they head to the Edinburgh Fringe was an absolute joyous evening at the Sherman Theatre.
Twm Bollen-Molloy and Luke Hereford are Polly Amorous and Esther Parade and the evening starts with two cloaked and darkened figures talking to each other like macabre sister witches from Macbeth.
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
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DAVID NICHOLSON is disappointed by a show that fails to engage its target audience
EWAN CAMERON savours the global diversity of the Fringe, from Chinese storytelling to Norse pro wrestling
EWAN CAMERON negotiates the fringe to pick out some of the best political shows
DAVID NICHOLSON is bowled over by a hilarious one woman show that explores the love-life of a 66-year-old working-class divorcee