DENNIS BROE finds much to praise in the new South African Netflix series, but wonders why it feels forced to sell out its heroine
21st century poetry with Andy Croft
Latest collections from Greg Freeman, Emma Jones, Ruth Valentine, Anna Robinson, Selina Rodrigues and Antony Owen
(L to R) Anne Robinson, Ruth Valentine and Selina Rodrigues
[(L to R) Enitharmon.co.uk/@whitechairN15/selinarodrigues.com] 
CARL DEATH introduces a new book which explores how African science fiction is addressing climate change
In his second round-up, EWAN CAMERON picks excellent solo shows that deal with Scottishness, Englishness and race as highlights
Fiery words from the Bard in Blackpool and Edinburgh, and Evidence Based Punk Rock from The Protest Family
MATTHEW HAWKINS is mesmerised by a performance that dissolves the line between audience and performer
MATTHEW SHARPE recommends the essays of a Renaissance politician that instruct and unnerve after 400 years
GAVIN O’TOOLE welcomes the reissue of a seminal work of revolutionary theory that have genuine relevance in the current context
“WHY can’t life still be hilarious?” asks Greg Freeman in Marples Must Go! (Vole, £10). Looking back on a 1960s childhood — the Dandy and the Beano, school milk monitors, Space Patrol, The Flowerpot Men, Juke Box Jury — Freeman cannot help but make gloomy comparisons with the present.
These days the Bash Street School is an academy, Desperate Dan has diabetes, Plug has lost both legs in Afghanistan and Walter the Softy has won the Forward prize for poetry.
The book takes its title from a slogan painted on the M1 about the Tory transport minister in the 1960s who opened the first motorways and closed 4,000 miles of railway lines: “And go he did,/after getting his peerage, flitting/on the night ferry to Monaco/to escape a huge tax bill. He’s history,/just another perverse politician/putting his foot down on our road to ruin.”
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ANDY CROFT rallies poets to the impossible task of speaking truth to a tin-eared politician
New titles from Fran Lock, Richard Skinner, Tara Bergin and Mark A Murphy
New titles from Kurdish poet İlhan Sami Comak and Volker Braun, one of Germany’s most important writers
New collections from Neil Fulwood, Kevin Higgins, Clare Saponia, Nora Blascsok and Peter Godfrey
