MAYER WAKEFIELD has reservations about the direction of a play centered on a DVLA re-training session for three British-Pakistani motorists
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Inescapable prison
MARY CONWAY admires a vivid, compassionate portrait of a father and daughter pinioned in the criminal underclass
bu love
New releases from Steve Knightley, Jupiter & Okwess, Jason Palmer, Lisa Knapp and Gerry Driver, Kin'Gongolo Kiniata, Ingrid Laubrock/Tom Rainey, Dan Sealey, Simin Tande, PAZ
JOHN GREEN relishes photography that unfolds a longstanding and poetic relationship with Leeds
A uncomfortably misogynistic authorial voice that sometimes seems to lack insight troubles FIONA O’CONNOR
MARY CONWAY is disappointed by a production that panders – if inadvertently – to Western prejudice against China
JOHN GREEN is fascinated by a history that excavates the enormous role played by agricultural workers in recent times
ALEX HALL recommends a book that places empirical evidence at the heart of understanding racism
Burnt Up Love
Finborough Theatre
CHE WALKER, who writes, directs and stars in Burnt Up Love at the Finborough is such an old hand as playwright, director and performer that we immediately know where we are. He knows what he’s setting out to do and delivers with confidence.
Mac is a prisoner, serving 20 years for murder. What keeps him going is his profound love for the daughter he last saw when she was three and a half. Her crumpled photograph on his wall is the light that illuminates the desperate darkness of cell life. And when he finally gets out, he goes to look for her.
The dramatic collision of dream with reality is inevitable. For, over the years, Mac has constructed in his mind a tale of social elevation and success for his girl. In the real world, however, the long arms of violence and the criminal underworld have reached far beyond the confines of his own cell, and they have mangled his daughter’s life as uncompromisingly as they have his own. Her attempt at a lesbian relationship with petty criminal Jayjayjay is doomed. Even her name — Scratch — is hard and grating. No easy happy ending is on the cards when brutality and self-loathing are etched into Scratch’s psyche.
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