SIMON PARSONS is discomfited by an unflichingly negative portrait of motherhood and its trials
Understanding autism
MATTHEW HAWKINS admires a writer with the gumption and wit to extend a transformative experience of autism to the reader
PAUL FOLEY recommends an extraordinary double bill that packs a punch and leaves you reeling
MARY CONWAY is disappointed by a play about AI that results in a deadening disconnect for its audience
SIMON PARSONS applauds an insightful state-of-the-nation play that explores the growing class divide in South Africa
MATTHEW HAWKINS pays tribute to the performance artist and costumier, Leigh Bowery
SIMON DUFF reviews a new composition by German composer and pianist Florian Weber that blurs the line between where improvisation ends and composition begins
New releases from The Jim Mullen Quartet, Caroline Kraabel/John Edwards, and Matthew Muneses/Riza Printup
Nine Minds – Inner Lives on The Spectrum
Daniel Tammet, Wellcome collection, £20
IS a mainstream mindset ever caught up in patterns of thought that are obsessive? Lines can be crossed: wires too. Eccentric or blinkered ways that are relatable in adulthood may signify as ominous mania in early life.
Nine Minds – Inner Lives on The Spectrum gets under the skin, by illustrating how intense interests or mental blanks that occur recognisably amid a happy majority can curiously ramp up or miss-time to designate an autistic community, among whom general rubric is written in upper-case bold.
Nine Minds keys into difference, from the perspective of interviewees who find themselves on the autistic spectrum. Its writing is not, essentially, a worded version of the workings of the autistic brain. Instead, author Daniel Tammet finds workable language to conjure portraits of his protagonists at their various stages of life.
More from this author
MATTHEW HAWKINS pays tribute to the performance artist and costumier, Leigh Bowery
MATTHEW HAWKINS is drawn into the everyday lives of women and girls in Muslim communities in southern India
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MATTHEW HAWKINS savours the brilliant dynamism of Brazilian contemporary dance, and Leicester’s own virtuoso of Indian dervishery
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