The bard distills our hellish times into fiery words

CONRAD LANDIN picks his highlights from Celtic Connections, and makes his recommendations for the last weekend

ANDY HEDGECOCK revels in a hugely enjoyable but deadly serious examination of the 1930s, that is an indictment of our own era

MARK TURNER applauds Michael Sheen’s determination to revive a Welsh National Theatre with Thornton Wilder’s study of love, loss and community

RITA DI SANTO draws attention to a new film that features Ken Loach and Jeremy Corbyn, and their personal experience of media misrepresentation

JULIA TOPPIN recommends Patti Smith’s eloquent memoir that wrestles with the beauty and sorrow of a lifetime

MARJORIE MAYO welcomes an account of family life after Oscar Wilde, a cathartic exercise, written by his grandson

KEN COCKBURN guides us through a survey of Chekov’s early short fiction, and the groundwork it laid for his later masterpieces

MARIA DUARTE and ANGUS REID review Is This Thing On?, Nouvelle Vague, Kangaroo, Shelter, and Melania

JOHN GREEN savours an elegy to black farmers in the deep south of the US: a vanishing way of life redolent with poetic and political meaning

Climate activist and writer JANE ROGERS introduces her new collection, Fire-ready, and examines the connection between life and fiction

by Victor Osemeka