The Star's critics ANDY HEDGECOCK, MARTIN HALL, MICHAL BONCZA, ANGUS REID reviews Holy Cow, One to One: John and Yoko, King of Kings, Panda Bear in Africa
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King queen
GORDON PARSONS admires a version of Marlowe’s grim tragedy that strips it down to its gay essentials
Edward 2
PATRICK JONES recommends a vital anthology from Afghan and Iranian poets where the political and personal fuse into witness-bearing and manifesto-making
WILL STONE is impressed by Hania Rani who is already making a name for herself in the male-dominated world of modern classical music
MIK SABIERS enjoys the theatrical feminist six piece who have a lot of fun that the audience feeds off as the set rolls on
New releases from Ibex Band, Lucy Dacus, and Various Artists
MARY CONWAY is disappointed by characters so un-nuanced as to be unreal, a stereotypical plot and a conceptual vampire
WILL STONE appreciates an artist who can swerve from industrial noise to clubby trance pop without missing a step
Edward II
The Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon
CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE’S grim tragedy is, understandably perhaps, the least often featured of his plays on the modern stage. With our contemporary fixation with LBGT+ concerns, it is not surprising that the RSCS artistic directors should have decided that the time is ripe for an airing.
Daniel Evans, one of those directors, stars in Daniel Raggett’s new pared-down production.
It can be no spoiler for most people who will see this play to recognise that its focal point is necessarily the final horrific rape and murder of a weak and ineffectual king whose obsession with sexual “frolicking with his minion” at the expense of his country’s good brings about his downfall.
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