JOHN GREEN is fascinated by a very readable account of Britain’s involvement in South America
Tabla tonic
GEORGE FOGARTY introduces himself to the healing power of traditional Indian music
Pandit Anindo and Anubrata Chatterjee perform at the Barbican
[Rehmat Ryatt / Darbar Festival] 
Strip cartoons used to be the bread and butter of newspapers and they have been around for centuries. MICHAL BONCZA asks our own Paul Tanner about which bees are in his bonnet
GORDON PARSONS acknowledges the authority with which Sarah Kane’s theatrical justification for suicide has resonance today
RON JACOBS welcomes a timely homage to one of the IWW and CPUSA’s most effective orators
ANDY HEDGECOCK relishes an exuberant blend of emotion and analysis that captures the politics and contrarian nature of the French composer
ANDY CROFT rallies poets to the impossible task of speaking truth to a tin-eared politician
Anindo Chatterjee and Anubrata Chatterjee
Darbar Festival, Barbican Centre, London
DARBAR festival was founded in 2005 by Sandeep Virdee as a tribute to his late father, the tabla master and teacher Gurmit Singh Virdee.
It is today probably the largest Indian classical music festival outside the subcontinent itself, and it turns out that Anindo Chatterjee had a hand in its foundation; his suggestion to Singh Virdee that he do a tabla performance in honour of the elder Virdee following his death seeded the idea of the festival in the young Sandeep’s mind.
So Chatterjee’s performance today is particularly fitting, especially as he appears with his own son, following rapidly in his footsteps as a master tabla player in his own right. Today they are joined by Dilshad Khan on the sarangi, the bowed string instrument that produces the distinctive and evocative sliding notes which underpin so much of this music.
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