RUTH AYLETT recommends two anthologies: one that bears witness to refugee and immigrant experiences, and the other to our political relationship to water
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CHRIS SEARLE is transported by a superfine tribute to James Baldwin
SETH SANDRONSKY appreciates a fresh take on a 100-year-old novel that helps to contextualise the current moment of conspicuous wealth, waste and climate chaos
A no-nonsense ex-Garda female cop, Scandi-noir’s newest flawed hero, the lure of Aussie gold, and unexpected decency in Silicon valley
JAN WOOLF doubts that soft-core musical is the best way to transmit an important story of heroism and resistance
Reviews of Ella Fitzgerald, My Morning Jacket, and Toria Wooff
GORDON PARSONS admires a version of Marlowe’s grim tragedy that strips it down to its gay essentials
When Cassy’s father fails to connect with his daughter — and misses out on
an evening in the Bitter End — a stranger’s self-mocking charm brings seething resentment.
Neil Charles Dark Days Quartet
Tribute to James Baldwin
Cafe Oto, Dalston London
I REMEMBER being immersed in reading the first explosive 100 pages of James Baldwin’s epochal novel, Another Country, as I rode on a Greyhound bus to take part in the massive Poor People’s Campaign demonstration in Washington DC in July 1968, shortly after the assassination of Martin Luther King.
Baldwin’s words about racist oppression and the life and suicide of the jazz drummer, Rufus Scott, were a profound message of their times. So I was determined, now in 2024, to hear Neil Charles’s Dark Days Quartet in Dalston’s Cafe Oto, celebrating Baldwin’s centenary.
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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