JON BALDWIN recommends a provocative assertion of how working-class culture can rethink knowledge
Lay it on thick
ALISTAIR FINDLAY recommends a prime example of a Marxist history of popular music that entertains and inspires
A FORM OF PROTEST: The Cribs performing live in 2018
These are vivid accounts of people’s experiences of far-right violence along with documentation of popular resistance, says MARJORIE MAYO
The Star's critic MARIA DUARTE, JOHN GREEN and ANGUS REID review An Army of Women, Julie Keeps Quiet, The Friend and The Ugly Stepsister
GORDON PARSONS squirms at a production that attempts to update Shakespeare’s comedy to a tale of Premier League football
Above a Gothic bar just down from Brighton station, something spooky is happening, suggests JAMES WALSH
PETER MASON is enthralled by an assembly of objects, ancient and modern, that have lain in the mud of London’s river
MIK SABIERS enjoys the theatrical feminist six piece who have a lot of fun that the audience feeds off as the set rolls on
Mixing Pop and Politics
Toby Manning, Repeater Books, £25
THIS is a refreshing and inspiring book written by a music industry insider, author of The Rough Guide to Pink Floyd (2006) who has written for Q, NME, New Statesman, Guardian and similar media, and is now manager and producer of a band called The Idle Lovers.
He says of it himself: “This is a Marxist history of popular music, not a history of Marxist popular music — that would be a very short book.” Indeed.
In fact it is a fascinating but very large book, 565 crammed pages, a hundred of which comprise the index and notes and thus a treasure trove waiting for aspiring Phd/masters students to plunder for quotes, insights and critiques, mostly from the Stuart Hall stable of cultural studies intellectuals — Marx, Gramsci, Marcuse, Althusser, Foucault, Raymond Williams and the more recent Frederic Jameson etc.
More from this author
While the group known as the Colourists certainly reinvigorated Scottish painting, a new show is a welcome chance to reassess them, writes ANGUS REID
ANGUS REID recommends an exquisite drama about the disturbing impact of the one child policy in contemporary China
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
