Ron's rages are sincere and — according to his wife — healthily cathartic. But can these splenetic outbursts loosen the grip of capitalism at its most monstrous?
IT'S been another tough year for the north west but, throughout these turbulent times, the cultural life of the region has shone through the gloom.
Against the odds in 2017 our great theatres have continued to make audiences laugh, cry and become angry as well as determined to fight for a better world.
While most have tightened their belts, the Liverpool Everyman took the bold step of creating its own rep company that debuted with a smashing Fiddler on the Roof, a musical portrait of peasant life in tsarist Russia.
PAUL FOLEY revels in the coolest, most joyful piece of theatre you’ll get this summer
MARY CONWAY becomes impatient with the intellectual self-indulgence of Tom Stoppard in a production that is, nevertheless, total class
GEORGE FOGARTY is captivated by a brilliant one-man show depicting life in HMP Strangeways
The summer saw the co-founders of modern communism travelling from Ramsgate to Neuenahr to Scotland in search of good weather, good health and good newspapers in the reading rooms, writes KEITH FLETT


