Back from a mini tour of Yorkshire and Stockport and cheering for supporting act Indignation Meeting
Plus ca change...
GORDON PARSONS sees an adaptation of Moliere’s satire on religious hypocrisy translate magnificently from 17th century Paris to 21st century Birmingham
PIC CAP: Hypocrisy in action: Asif Khan as Tartuffe
ALISTAR FINDLAY is mesmerised by this multiple ‘Visions of Scotland’ assault on the audience’s eyes and senses
The Star's critics ANGUS REID, ANDY HEDGECOCK and MICHAL BONCZA reviews I Am Love, The Penguin Lessons, Freaky Tales, The Thicket
MAYER WAKEFIELD has reservations about the direction of a play centered on a DVLA re-training session for three British-Pakistani motorists
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
Tartuffe
The Swan Theatre, Stratford-Upon-Avon
SET in the Brummie-Pakistani Muslim household of a successful businessman who has become obsessed by a local would-be imam, Iqbal Khan’s production of Tartuffe works a remarkable theatrical alchemy.
One can imagine some devout believers of Birmingham’s large Pakistani Muslim community being as outraged by this treatment of their religion as Louis XIV’s religious establishment when the play originally aroused so much antagonism.
But from the outset Anil Gupta and Richard Pinto’s adaptation, true to Moliere, ensures that the reactions of Imran Pervaiz’s family clearly show that Tartuffe is an out-and-out phoney. Asif Khan as the toothily oily imposter cons his credulous victim with beguiling ease.
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