ANDY HEDGECOCK enjoys a novel for adults (by a writer of children’s fiction) that examines the fatal impact of a parent’s literary imaginings

ALISON DONNELL extols a virtuoso literary performance that primes the imagination for justice and transformation to come

SYLVIA HIKINS applauds a magical stage revival of the famous 1980s film, Letter to Brezhnev

PAUL DONOVAN recommends an intriguing tale of abuse, bullying, revenge and long-held grudges

New releases from Biita Houdei, The Mary Wallopers, and The Tubs
 

PETER MASON applauds the revival, 39 years later with the same team and cast, of Manfred Karge’s version of Brecht’s 100-year-old play, Mann Ist Mann

RITA DI SANTO recommends an astonishing documentary that offers first hand accounts of how the IDF plans and enforces its genocide of Palestinians

NICK WRIGHT laments the political bias of an epic attempt to tell the history of the liberation of France from the Nazis, that excludes both the decisive contribution of the Soviet Red Army, and of the French communist party itself

MAYER WAKEFIELD applauds a fearless attempt to bring to the stage the 1984 toxic gas disaster in Bhopal, India

JOE GILL traces the ideology and method of contemporary imperialism back to the greed, hubris and violence of the late 15th century Portuguese

GORDON PARSONS enjoys Kant’s ‘mind-boggling’ theory of human reality: that we create the reality we experience

ALEX HALL applauds the account of a dogged, traumatic and punishing campaign for justice that has lasted from 1998 to the present day

MARTIN HALL relishes a new intellectual history of Sir Thomas More that cuts through the myth and returns to primary sources

MARIA DUARTE and JAMES WALSH review Queen At Sea, The Watergate Caper: Richard Nixon and the Death of the American Dream, Bad Apples, Pulp: What Do You Do For An Encore?, and Shaun The Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom

NICK WRIGHT laments the one-sided telling of French history in an otherwise entertaining spectacle

MARK TURNER relishes the warm, melancholy of jazz drummer-turned composer Sam Green

by M Chambers

RITA DI SANTO speaks to XAVIER TERA about his Fipresci-winning film The Colour of the Sun, a critique of US imperialism set in the Japanese archipelago

KATARZYNA KOSMALA introduces a retrospective by one of the most significant figures in contemporary US photography

RITA DI SANTO assesses the winners of the most politically charged festival to date

MAYER WAKEFIELD is entertained but let down by an audacious production that, sadly, doesn't ring true

MARY CONWAY is disappointed by drama that, despite accomplished performances, cannot overcome an unfocused script

New releases from Sam Carter, Spell Songs and Les Thomas

ANDY HEDGECOCK relishes an enlightening and witty biography of one of the 20th century’s most restless and influential artists

KEN COCKBURN traces the one original language – that of the Yamnaya pastoral nomads – from which all European and Indian languages derive

PAUL DONOVAN is fascinated by the debunking of the iconic British war hero

ALEX HALL recommends a searing panorama of our global predicament

Comics are not just superheroes and spandex – it can be public art, telling public stories, suggests HARRIET EARLE

The bard serenades the Diggers of Wigan and their festive followers

ALEXEI SAYLE speaks to Angus Reid about a lifetime of protest, how to hone political art – and what to do now

ANDY HEDGECOCK, JAMES WALSH, LEO BOIX and MARIA DUARTE review Just An Illusion, Everybody Digs Bill Evans, Blue Film, Oasis: Don’t Look Back in Anger, and Runner

MARIA DUARTE recommends a nerve-wracking reconstruction of the 72 hours before the Normandy landings

WILL STONE samples the 20th anniversary atmosphere of this eclectic end-of-season indie festival

TONY BURKE plots the career of the legendary Senegalese band from Dakar nightclubs to Glastonbury

by Rina Malagayo Alluri

RITA DI SANTO contemplates two films about journalism that opened this year’s festival

Memory, inheritance and resistance: a compelling Brazilian memoir, Argentinian short stories about the Japanese diaspora, and the Chilean skies of childhood, with LEO BOIX

MARY CONWAY keeps up with the sheer pace of a drama about the terrible gap between sanitised reporting and real-life turmoil of race and gender

GEOFF BOTTOMS applauds a world-class production King Lear that pits late feudalism against a rising bourgeoisie

New releases from Brian Fallon, Antony Szmierek and Hollow Hand

PAUL DONOVAN welcomes a revival of Reginald Rose’s classic play that reminds us of the fundamental need for trials with juries

APURBA CHATTERJEE explains how British artists in India used the “picturesque” to reshape colonial landscapes and celebrate imperial power

SIMON PARSONS applauds an exceptional performance of Wesker’s little-known play, by the same actor for whom it was written 45 years ago

JAMES NALTON feels history in the making, witnessing the latest shoegaze sensation in an intimate club

ANDY HEDGECOCK and MARIA DUARTE review Late Fame, The Death of Robin Hood, Leviticus, and Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass

ANGUS REID recommends a uniquely accomplished documentary collage that contemplates our relation to the natural world

GORDON PARSONS enjoys Kant’s ‘mind-boggling’ theory of human reality: that we create the reality we experience

DAVID RABY welcomes a biography that emphasises how Fidel’s unique characteristics became hallmarks of the ongoing Cuban revolutionary process

MARJ MAYO recommends an engaging, if chilling, collection of diaries and letters that trace a population's capacity for accommodation with Nazism

IAN SINCLAIR recommends a readable, if partisan, account of the astonishing campaign of New York's new mayor

by Marwa Paikan

MATTHEW HAWKINS witnesses a contemporary ballet that represents human life as subjected to artificial intelligence

CATHERINE STEEL relishes a compelling novel about Augustus’s right hand man, but misses the politics, the cultural shifts, and more detail about his restoration of Rome

TONY BURKE speaks to JOEL McIVER, co-author of the biography of bluesman John Mayall

GEORGE FOGARTY is thrilled by the political clarity on show at the most independent, sustainable and worker-owned festival in the UK

A misfit couple unhappily ever after, a dead man walking, dodgy journos, and trench art trucking

New releases from Javon Jackson, IZE Trio, and Mal Waldron Trio

PAUL DONOVAN applauds an intriguing multi-layered depiction, dominated by a stunning impersonation of Marilyn herself

The Bard hands out medals for his Edinburgh campaign and urges us to support The Men They Couldn’t Hang

EWAN CAMERON marvels at the impossible ambition, realised with dreamlike finesse of translating Italo Calvino to the stage

ADAM J SMITH casts an admiring eye over the noble tradition of satirical impersonations in British politics

RON JACOBS welcomes a history of the Young Patriots Organisation that is also an organising manual with applications and implications for today

JOE GILL marvels at the history of a highly complex nomadic and hunter/gatherer society without a hierarchical class system

SETH SANDRONSKY recommends a Marxist critique of the ‘race-first’ views of the influential black US theorist Cedric Robinson

STEVE JOHNSON savours a singing legend who stayed true to her working-class origins

ANDY HEDGECOCK, JAMES WALSH and JAMIE BRITTON  review Hanging by a Wire, I Want Your Sex, The Pout-Pout Fish, and Rise of the Foot Soldier: Retribution

MARY CONWAY admires a brave and topical study of Armageddon that is, unfortunately, unable to come to a conclusion

LEO BOIX applauds an audacious, self-questioning film about grief, friendship and film-making

by Mohammed Moussa

Chris Searle speaks to US pianist RAN BLAKE

EWAN CAMERON trawls the Edinburgh fringe for new political drama

In a season of Greek mythology NIAMH THORNTON looks at an intriguing relocation of Medea to contemporary Mexico

Rescue care from the realm of sentimentality: what happens when we replace the vertical relationship between benefactor and victim with interdependence, collective organisation and struggle?

By chance, RENATA MEDEIROS MIRRA comes across a fine new two hander about the enduring legacy of the Miners' strike

MATTHEW HAWKINS looks at some of the Edinburgh Festival dance offerings

New releases by Interpol, Phoebe Bridgers, Lambchop

Before Greek myths reached the multiplex, they were weapons of political satire. CALLUM SMITH explores the evidence

Re-releases of the classics Gypsy Rhumba and Buena Vista Social Club, and a stunning album by Palestinian artist Faris Ishaq

ANGUS REID urges us to understand the persecution of Jason Arday from a political and historical perspective, and to see the victim in human terms

DAVID McKINSTRY welcomes the republication of a meticulous portrait of Brother Walfrid, the founder of Celtic FC

HENRY BELL salutes a fine portrait of a revolutionary who remains a deeply significant and provocative figure

JAMIE BRITTON invites readers to visit 3,500 locals as part of a marathon artistic pub crawl

JOHN GREEN welcomes a valuable and incisive analysis of a world become hyperpolitical but without the mass movement institutions to represent it

Nothing, says ANDY HEDGECOCK, can rescue this undistinguished amalgam of ponderous melodrama and shallow philosophical speculation

Chris Searle speaks to jazz vocalist NORMA WINSTONE

by Ayo Ayoola-Amale

JAMES WALSH is moved by a provocative and original take on the relationship between ecology and architecture, and a plea to work with, not against, the materials and minerals of our world

JAMIE BRITTON welcomes a celebration of Leo Baxendale, who was always political and the godfather of British comics

An immersive, participatory display by a queer Australian Aboriginal performer, and a rebellious unravelling of traditional Scottish dance

EWAN CAMERON witnesses a political farce that lacks a clear message

Angus Reid speaks to JAZZ BHALLA about the genesis of his superb feature debut, Never Had A Chance, in cinemas this weekend

EWAN CAMERON picks out two fascinating music shows, fusing the Korean, and the Celtic, with the modern

BENJAMIN POTHIER suggests that Palaeolithic cave paintings in Spain point to the ceremonial use of hallucinogenic flora

The bard confirms that the right has a humour bypass, and replays the English Revolution on period instruments

MARTIN HALL welcomes a plea for greater compassion between believer and non-believer via the framework of philosophical enquiry

MATTHEW HAWKINS welcomes an engaging and nourishing account of the queer subculture that flourished in London between WWII and partial decriminalisation 

ALEX HALL welcomes a history of the Bund, and its emphatic demand for working-class solidarity across racial and ethnic difference

RON JACOBS welcomes the political lessons for today, about organisation and withdrawal from conflict, made by an erudite and conversational biography

MARIA DUARTE and ANDY HEDGECOCK review Sunny Dancer, Tony, Songs of Forgotten Trees, and The End of Oak Street

JOHN GREEN relishes a powerful and moving drama that explores the lived realities of west London’s Punjabi community

CHRIS SEARLE speaks to Argentinian saxophonist CAMILA NEBBIA

If you only see one show in Edinburgh, make it this one urges EWAN CAMERON

by Francesco Sani

Monster profits on the Tube, paternal dilemmas for time travellers, and an alien abduction buddy saga

SOPHIE WENBAN recommends a remarkable Italian quartet who revive Bluegrass on period instruments to give a taste of the communal spirit that first made it popular

BEN CHACKO unpicks the significance of the discovery, in 2015, of ancient texts about  Confucius. Was he simply a teacher, or a philosopher, statesman and saint?

Family issues and dragon-fuelled history amount to a vacuous spectacle that ill-fits the theatre, muses SIMON PARSONS

At the Edinburgh Fringe, MATTHEW HAWKINS reviews eight shows in a single day in one venue, all of which reward the spectator

New releases from The Jayhawks, Primal Scream, and Max Subar

MIGUEL YOSHIDA explains the evolution and influence of the Cuban Casa De Las Americas in joining culture to the revolutionary struggle

Flitting between myth and the modern world, Medusa is determined to steer clear of human affairs. When her resolve crumbles, the result is petrifying in every sense

MICHAL BONCZA, FIONA O’CONNOR, JAMES WALSH and ANGUS REID review Atlas of Disappearance, Love Me Tender, Bouchra, and This Tempting Madness

ANDY HEDGECOCK is charmed by a skilful adaptation of Tove Jansson’s lyrical portrait of three generations of a family, overcoming grief

SUE TURNER recommends a rich and varied selection of the letters, diaries and memoirs of British volunteers

KENNY MacASKILL relishes a history of the politicians and civil servants who laid the foundations of the French Republic

ALEX HALL treads warily through a messy, dialectical struggle fought in the mundane machinery of driving licences, criminal law, and birth registries

GORDON PARSONS recommends an entertaining account of the years between Germany’s defeat in WWI and Hitler’s seizure of power

ALAN MORRISON explores, and recommends, a remarkable collection of poems that explore war photography with the moral responsibility of a documentary film-maker

by Matthew Paul

JAMES WALSH tells you everything you could possibly want to know about what comedy is on offer at the fringe

Conman conned in a twisty thriller, blind trust tested to the limit, cunning murder methods, and tip-top police procedural

SIMON DUFF is thrilled by a visceral, no-holds-barred exploration of the expressive powers of raw material 

GEORGE FOGARTY reflects on the politics expressed at this year’s festival where contradictions abound, but the music kept it real

CHRIS SEARLE waxes lyrical over Alan Skidmore’s tenor-tonic, Jeremy Pelt, and the Yusef Lateef Quartet

Rereleases from Nazareth, and The Strawbs, and a fine collection of covers and new songs from Grey DeLisle & Les Greene

New releases from Captain Yossarian, Orquesta Akokan, and Nana Osei Twum Barima

RON JACOBS is enthralled by Roberto Saviano’s portrait of heroes and deplorables, that calls for people to stand up for themselves and the things they believe in

BRENT CUTLER is disappointed by a work of historical revisionism by a former US army officer, that makes a false equivalence between the two regimes

JIM JUMP introduces two new publications that examine both sides of the Irish participation in the Spanish civil war

DOMINIC O’KEY recommends Arundhati Roy’s study of troubled mother/daughter relations

The Bard contributes to the campaign of Count Binface, and applauds Burnham’s plans for vocational training
 

JAN WOOLF welcomes the initiative of St Mungo’s, a charity for the homeless, to use use outdoor art to explore the lives of those it has helped

KIM CULLEN enjoys the survey of social work and working-class lives to be found in the superb work of British-Jamaican photographer Sandra George

ANGUS REID, FIONA O’CONNOR, JAMES WALSH and MARIA DUARTE review Wham! 10 Days in China, Lesvia, Di’Anno: Iron Maiden’s Lost Singer, Spider-Man: Brand New Day, and The Fires

MARIA DUARTE recommends a remarkable study of the friendship between a Palestinian and a Pakistani, broken by a hostile state

MATTHEW HAWKINS rakes through un-fancy words and flair-free summaries to find who and what might be flamboyant

by Mary Gilonne

Tony Burke speaks to GARTH CARTWRIGHT about the new edition of his book exploring the vinyl meccas of London

Reducing historical lives to ‘male’ and ‘female’ roles, we lose the nuance of those lives and a clearer understanding of past societies, suggests CLAIRE ISABELLA GILMOUR

PETER MASON is exhilarated by an exciting, well-considered and historically minded tribute to the great Trinidadian instrument

CHRIS SEARLE relishes the genius of pianist Alexander Hawkins, his many ensembles, and his new album

SIMON PARSONS applauds the timely revival of a play about solidarity and betrayal within Britain’s Pakistani community

New releases from The Mountains Goats, Ed O’Brien, and YHWH Nailgun

RON JACOBS enjoys a great tale, told by a US communist, of the lives of working-class New Yorkers

The Odyssey is a tale of evasions and half-truths; this reflects the effects of traumatic ‘moral injury’ common to war veterans, suggests STEPHAN BLUM

by Alistair Findlay

BRENT CUTLER searches a new history of contemporary Iran for an understanding of the Islamic Republic, finding both interesting detail and glaring omissions

PAUL DONOVAN is fascinated by the lives of Charles and Mary Bagot, and the insight this biography shines on the morals of pre-Victorian society

KENNY MacASKILL is disappointed by a polemical, rather than factual, account of the Lone Star State and its political path since the civil war