Culture | Morning Star

Culture

Attila the Stockbroker / 18 April 2025

Cheering For Indignation

18 April 2025

Back from a mini tour of Yorkshire and Stockport and cheering for supporting act Indignation Meeting

Theatre / 18 April 2025

History from below

18 April 2025

ALISTAR FINDLAY is mesmerised by this multiple ‘Visions of Scotland’ assault on the audience’s eyes and senses

Cinema / 17 April 2025

Film round-up

17 April 2025

The Star's critics ANGUS REID, ANDY HEDGECOCK and MICHAL BONCZA reviews I Am Love, The Penguin Lessons, Freaky Tales, The Thicket

Culture / 15 April 2025

Stuck on a roundabout

15 April 2025

MAYER WAKEFIELD has reservations about the direction of a play centered on a DVLA re-training session for three British-Pakistani motorists

Music / 15 April 2025

New albums from from Steve Knightley, Jupiter & Okwess, and more

15 April 2025

New releases from Steve Knightley, Jupiter & Okwess, Jason Palmer, Lisa Knapp and Gerry Driver, Kin'Gongolo Kiniata, Ingrid Laubrock/Tom Rainey, Dan Sealey, Simin Tande, PAZ

Photography / 14 April 2025

Lowry of the lens

14 April 2025

Peter Mitchell's photography reveals a poetic relationship with Leeds

Books / 14 April 2025

All the horrors of Iraq

14 April 2025

A uncomfortably misogynistic authorial voice that sometimes seems to lack insight troubles FIONA O’CONNOR

Culture / 14 April 2025

Bereft of insight into Chinese culture and politics

14 April 2025

MARY CONWAY is disappointed by a production that panders – if inadvertently – to Western prejudice against China

Culture / 13 April 2025

The role of peasants in 20th century history

13 April 2025

JOHN GREEN is fascinated by a history that excavates the enormous role played by agricultural workers in recent times

Culture / 13 April 2025

How to truly end the choke-hold of racism?

13 April 2025

ALEX HALL recommends a book that places empirical evidence at the heart of understanding racism

Culture / 13 April 2025

Bonding with others offers a level of freedom and strength

13 April 2025

A recognition that individually we are powerless both politically and socially is essential, writes GORDON PARSONS

The crowd at Manchester Punk Festival 2024 [Photo credit Gis

Culture / 11 April 2025

Punk or not, don't miss this

11 April 2025

Ben Cowles speaks with IAN ‘TREE’ ROBINSON and ANDY DAVIES, two of the string pullers behind the Manchester Punk Festival, ahead of its 10th year show later this month

Culture / 11 April 2025

Time catches up with 1970s classic

11 April 2025

PAUL FOLEY is disappointed by a production that encourages the audience to laugh at rather than with the characters

Film of the week / 10 April 2025

Underlining the senselessness of war

10 April 2025

Odysseus’s homecoming myth is treated as a factual story, with strong resonances for our contemporary world. This is an implicit anti-war film that has an urgent relevance, writes JOHN GREEN

Cinema / 10 April 2025

Film round-up: April 10, 2025

10 April 2025

The Star's critics ANDY HEDGECOCK, MARTIN HALL, MICHAL BONCZA, ANGUS REID reviews Holy Cow, One to One: John and Yoko, King of Kings, Panda Bear in Africa

Books / 8 April 2025

An outstanding anthology of female poets

8 April 2025

PATRICK JONES recommends a vital anthology from Afghan and Iranian poets where the political and personal fuse into witness-bearing and manifesto-making

Culture / 8 April 2025

Breaking the mould emphatically

8 April 2025

WILL STONE is impressed by Hania Rani who is already making a name for herself in the male-dominated world of modern classical music

Culture / 8 April 2025

Definitely worth catching

8 April 2025

MIK SABIERS enjoys the theatrical feminist six piece who have a lot of fun that the audience feeds off as the set rolls on

Documentary / 17 April 2025

Blue Road: The Edna O’Brien Story

17 April 2025

A beautifully-crafted documentary from Sinéad O’Shea

21st Century Poetry / 16 April 2025

The Door to the House of Democracy

16 April 2025

by Owen Gallagher

Interview / 14 April 2025

‘I hope I can keep on keeping on until the last drum roll and tattoo rolls out of my being’

14 April 2025

CHRIS SEARLE speaks to drummer Steve Noble

Culture / 13 April 2025

Contemporary classical and electronic albums with Simon Duff: April 14, 2025

13 April 2025

New releases from Nazar, Peter Gregson and Mesias Maiguashca

Culture / 13 April 2025

A useful work of political ecology

13 April 2025

MARTIN GRAHAM recommends a book that makes a critique of neoclassical economics and attempts to envision a sustainable global future

Culture / 10 April 2025

‘Effervescent’

10 April 2025

This is poetry in paint, spectacular but never spectacle for its own sake, writes JAN WOOLF

21st Century Poetry / 8 April 2025

Man hours

8 April 2025

by Adaora Raji

Interview / 8 April 2025

Tensions in the Chinese middle class

8 April 2025

ANGUS REID speaks to Lin Jianjie about his debut feature Brief History of a Family

Culture / 7 April 2025

An excellent night of alternative comedy

7 April 2025

'We’re a long way from Live At The Apollo and interchangeable telly panel shows here, and I mean that in the best possible way,' writes JAMES WALSH

Culture / 7 April 2025

Wine never used to be a snob drink

7 April 2025

STEPHAN BLUM presents the evidence that wine was enjoyed by common folk, independent of upper-class celebrations and religious rituals

Letters from Latin America / 7 April 2025

Letters from Latin America with Leo Boix: April 7, 2025

7 April 2025

Travelogue/reportage by Argentinean Maria Sonia Cristoff, and poetry by Peruvian Gaston Fernandez and Puerto Rican Cristina Perez Diaz

Music / 6 April 2025

Album reviews with Ian Sinclair: April 6, 2025

6 April 2025

New releases from Ibex Band, Lucy Dacus, and Various Artists

Theatre Review / 6 April 2025

Fangs for nothing

6 April 2025

MARY CONWAY is disappointed by characters so un-nuanced as to be unreal, a stereotypical plot and a conceptual vampire

Books / 5 April 2025

Rosen on genocide

5 April 2025

ANDY HEDGECOCK welcomes an explanation of genocide by the persecuted author that is both uplifting and important

Music review / 5 April 2025

Throwing a curveball

5 April 2025

WILL STONE appreciates an artist who can swerve from industrial noise to clubby trance pop without missing a step

Appreciation / 5 April 2025

Athol Fugard: the word as tool of resistance

5 April 2025

Following his death a month ago, DENNIS WALDER assesses the achievement of the playwright who developed his work in the townships

Decoding Network TV / 4 April 2025

Adolescence? Kes it ain’t

4 April 2025

DENNIS BROE doubts the virtue of showing this series in schools, given its damaging portrayal of working-class boys as irredeemably violent

Culture / 4 April 2025

Attila the Stockbroker Diary: April 5, 2025

4 April 2025

A rare trip down the beer-sodden alleys of memory lane reminds the bard of Puppy Love

Book Review / 4 April 2025

A tale of revolution and friendship

4 April 2025

RON JACOBS recommends a painstaking study of the communists and revolutionaries who congregated in Moscow after 1917

Books / 3 April 2025

Solidarity in the housework place

3 April 2025

SYLVIA HIKINS applauds a polemic against “cleanfluencers” and considers radical alternatives to current inequalities of housework

Books / 3 April 2025

Against the medicalisation of mental health

3 April 2025

JOHN GREEN explores the argument that psychiatry needs to move away from the idea of just seeing and treating the individual

Cinema / 3 April 2025

Film round-up: April 3, 2025

3 April 2025

The Star's critic MARIA DUARTE reviews Sebastian, Four Mothers, Restless, and The Most Precious of Cargoes

Film of the week / 3 April 2025

Drop the accent, boyo

3 April 2025

The Star's critic MARIA DUARTE recommends a drama that explores the formative years of Richard Burton’s life

Theatre review / 2 April 2025

The trials of a Cypriot mother

2 April 2025

ANGELA COBBINAH applauds the success of a tribute in drama by a daughter to her immigrant mother

Poetry review / 2 April 2025

Class reproduction

2 April 2025

RUTH AYLETT admires the blunt honesty with which a woman’s experience is recorded, but detects the unexamined privilege that underlies it

21st Century Poetry / 2 April 2025

White Noise

2 April 2025

by Maria Ferguson

Archaeology / 1 April 2025

The Melsonby hoard

1 April 2025

DUNCAN GARROW introduces a remarkable Iron Age discovery in Yorkshire that reveals ancient Britons’ connections with Europe

Books / 1 April 2025

Brace yourselves for the deluge

1 April 2025

IAN SINCLAIR draws attention to the powerful role that literature plays in foreseeing the way humanity will deal with climate crisis

Crime fiction / 1 April 2025

Crime fiction with Mat Coward: April 1, 2025

1 April 2025

High quality pulp, rollicking online murders, Abnorman Britain, and high skates drama: reviews of The Get Off, Everyone In The Group Chat Dies, Pagans and First To Fall

Opera Review / 31 March 2025

In search of Greta things

31 March 2025

STEF LYONS is stirred by a new opera that toys with ecological themes, but doesn’t get properly polemical

Decoding Network TV / 31 March 2025

On not speaking truth to power

31 March 2025

DENNIS BROE notes what happens to content when the streaming giants incorporate AI and deregulation into their economic models

Music / 31 March 2025

Album reviews with Michal Boncza: March 31, 2025

31 March 2025

New releases from The Tenementals, Nik Bartsch’s Ronin, and Kuunatic

Books / 28 March 2025

Resistance is not futile

28 March 2025

RON JACOBS welcomes the long overdue translation of an epic work that chronicles resistance to fascism during WWII

Opinion / 28 March 2025

Ta for noticing

28 March 2025

The Chinese language only introduced a feminine pronoun in the 1920s. Now, it might adopt a gender-inclusive one, suggests JANET DAVEY

Books / 27 March 2025

Game changing

27 March 2025

SCOTT ALSWORTH hears the call to burn down and rebuild the video game industry from the bottom up

Book Review / 27 March 2025

Where Gaza came from

27 March 2025

ALEX HALL is intrigued by a detailed history of Gaza that demonstrates its historic resilience and changing economy

Books / 27 March 2025

Class exercise

27 March 2025

JOHN GREEN recommends an entertaining, if harsh and instructive, study of bullying, discipline and power dynamics in schools and at work

Books / 27 March 2025

Liverpool’s sell-by date

27 March 2025

CHRIS MOSS welcomes a radical history that brings marginalised stories and overlooked people and agencies to the centre

Theatre Review / 27 March 2025

Last tango at the butcher’s

27 March 2025

MAYER WAKEFIELD is chilled by the co-dependency of two lost souls as portrayed by German communist playwright Franz Xaver Kroetz

Cinema / 27 March 2025

Film round-up: March 27, 2025

27 March 2025

The Star's critics BRETT GREGORY, JOHN GREEN, MICHAEL BONCZA and ANGUS REID review The Stimming Pool, Misericordia, La Cocina, Irena’s Vow, and The End

Film of the Week: / 27 March 2025

Not painting the full picture

27 March 2025

CHRISTINE LINDEY welcomes a film that focuses exclusively on women war artists, but deplores its omission of feminism, political context and Soviet anti-war art

Interview / 26 March 2025

‘Rock and pop music were the unexpected consequences of the working-class entering history’

26 March 2025

BRETT GREGORY speaks with TOBY MANNING, author of Mixing Pop and Politics: A Marxist History of Popular Music

21st Century Poetry / 26 March 2025

More Matriarchal

26 March 2025

by Lorraine Voss

Book Review / 25 March 2025

Authentic worlds

25 March 2025

SARAH TROTT explores short fictional slices of life in the American midwest from a middle-aged and mostly female perspective

Literature / 25 March 2025

Living in this brief, violent world

25 March 2025

JESSICA WIDNER explores how the twin themes of violence and love run through the novels of South Korean Nobel prize-winner Han Kang

Live Music Review / 25 March 2025

Happy jazz

25 March 2025

MARK TURNER is staggered by a gifted jazz pianist from the Welsh Valleys

Book Review / 25 March 2025

Once upon a time in Engelstadt

25 March 2025

ANDREW HEDGECOCK relishes visual storytelling with no respect for genres, movements or styles

Album reviews / 24 March 2025

Albums reviews with Ian Sinclair: March 24, 2025

24 March 2025

New releases from Black Country, New Road, Anouar Brahem, and Jaywalkers

Decoding network TV / 24 March 2025

Shock! US corporation promotes ‘evil corporation’ thriller

24 March 2025

DENNIS BROE points out that Apple is part of the corporate and state surveillance network which the new series Prime Target rails against

Book Review / 22 March 2025

Welfare not warfare

22 March 2025

RICHARD CLARKE recommends a hugely valuable text for those seeking theoretical analysis and practical action to defend public services

Book Review / 22 March 2025

The casualties of prosperity

22 March 2025

JOHN HAWKINS is moved by an oral history that examines five black families pushed into homelessness in the US

Book Review / 22 March 2025

South Africa’s complex relationship with the camera

22 March 2025

BOB NEWLAND recommends an outstanding study of how images have shaped narratives of identity, resistance and power in South Africa

Exhibition review / 21 March 2025

Eh? Aye! Definitely!

21 March 2025

In an exhibition of the graphic art of Lorna Miller, MATT KERR takes a lungful of the oxygen of dissent

Theatre review / 21 March 2025

On not selling out

21 March 2025

PAUL DONOVAN applauds a timely play that explores the resonances of McCarthyite nationalism in today’s US

Exhibition review / 21 March 2025

In the ring with the Colourists

21 March 2025

While the group known as the Colourists certainly reinvigorated Scottish painting, a new show is a welcome chance to reassess them, writes ANGUS REID

Attila the Stockbroker Diary / 21 March 2025

Attila the Stockbroker Diary: March 21, 2025

21 March 2025

Given the global plague of Agent Orange, the bard channels his energy into community self-help

Cinema / 20 March 2025

Film round-up: March 20, 2025

20 March 2025

The Star's critics review The Sinking Of The Lisbon Maru, Two Strangers Trying Not To Kill Each Other, American Dreamer, When Autumn Falls, and Flow

Film of the Week: / 20 March 2025

Chinese family under the microscope

20 March 2025

ANGUS REID recommends an exquisite drama about the disturbing impact of the one child policy in contemporary China

21st Century Poetry / 19 March 2025

Universals

19 March 2025

by Steven Taylor

Live Music Review / 19 March 2025

Self-healing technologies

19 March 2025

GEORGE FOGARTY is mesmerised by the messages made when jazz is played by people who grew up steeped in jungle and hip-hop

Jazz album review / 19 March 2025

McFarlane salutes Vaughan

19 March 2025

MARK TURNER is thrilled by the the British singer’s tribute to the late great Sarah Vaughan

Interview / 18 March 2025

Victims of the gig economy

18 March 2025

RITA DI SANTO speaks to Laura Carreira about her study of workers in an Amazon warehouse, On Falling

Book Review / 18 March 2025

The expression of the economy in culture

18 March 2025

NICK WRIGHT delicately unpicks the eloquent writings on art of an intellectual pessimist who wears his Marxism lightly

Follow the Movement / 18 March 2025

Wiggle room

18 March 2025

MATTHEW HAWKINS appreciates an interpretation in dance of James Baldwin’s landmark novel of doomed homosexual desire

Music / 17 March 2025

Folk album reviews with Steve Johnson: March 18, 2025

17 March 2025

New releases from Jenn Butterworth, Liz Overs, and Gigspanner Big Band

Ballet Review / 17 March 2025

Defeating the D-men

17 March 2025

SUSAN DARLINGTON applauds the translation of Jane Eyre into a ballet that preserves the drama of her formative years

Theatre Review / 17 March 2025

There ain’t no yellow brick road running through Glasgow

17 March 2025

STEF LYONS is swept along by the infectious energy of an ex-con single mother’s dreams of Nashville

Music review / 14 March 2025

This music is your music

14 March 2025

STEVE JOHNSON recommends that you catch an unforgettable tribute to Woody Guthrie

Books / 14 March 2025

Embrace the differences

14 March 2025

MARJORIE MAYO recommends a punchy demonstration of the the way class politics are being fragmented by the right

Books / 13 March 2025

Food for thought

13 March 2025

STEVE ANDREW welcomes a political interrogation of the contradiction between ecological awareness and a dietary crisis in today’s food consumption

ScreenCuba Film Festival / 13 March 2025

Screen Cuba, Take Two

13 March 2025

Festival Coordinators TRISH MEEHAN and DODIE WEPPLER introduce some of the highlights of Screen Cuba Film Festival 2025

Books / 13 March 2025

Comrades, not colleagues

13 March 2025

HENRY BELL is moved by the account of scientists under seige in Leningrad who preferred to starve rather than sacrifice their life-saving work

Books / 13 March 2025

A man for all seasons

13 March 2025

WILL PODMORE recommends an excellent and useful introduction to a lesser-known giant of the scientific revolution in Britain

Books / 13 March 2025

Dr Who and the scourge of capitalism

13 March 2025

JOHN GREEN surveys the remarkable career of screenwriter Malcolm Hulke and the essential part played by his membership of the Communist Party

Cinema / 13 March 2025

Film round-up: March 13, 2025

13 March 2025

The Star's critic MARIA DUARTE reviews Last Breath, Sister Midnight, Opus, and The Electric State

Film of the week / 13 March 2025

Mid wife crisis

13 March 2025

The Star's critic MARIA DUARTE recommends a deliciously dark thriller that explores the complex loyalties within a marriage

Cartoon / 12 March 2025

The unkindest cuts of all

12 March 2025

DEE HUEZ contemplates the cruelty of the Chancellor

21st Century Poetry / 12 March 2025

Lollipops

12 March 2025

by Tracey Rhys

Poetry Review / 12 March 2025

Through fire and water

12 March 2025

RUTH AYLETT recommends two anthologies: one that bears witness to refugee and immigrant experiences, and the other to our political relationship to water

Exhibition review / 11 March 2025

Resist and connect

11 March 2025

JON BALDWIN appreciates the way Steve McQueen has curated the evidence of our resistance, and is inspired by their cumulative effect

Books / 11 March 2025

Wasters

11 March 2025

SETH SANDRONSKY appreciates a fresh take on a 100-year-old novel that helps to contextualise the current moment of conspicuous wealth, waste and climate chaos

Crime fiction / 11 March 2025

Crime fiction with Mat Coward: March 11, 2025

11 March 2025

A no-nonsense ex-Garda female cop, Scandi-noir’s newest flawed hero, the lure of Aussie gold, and unexpected decency in Silicon valley

Music / 10 March 2025

Album reviews with Ian Sinclair: March 10, 2025

10 March 2025

Reviews of Ella Fitzgerald, My Morning Jacket, and Toria Wooff

Theatre Review / 10 March 2025

Anti-fascist musical?

10 March 2025

JAN WOOLF doubts that soft-core musical is the best way to transmit an important story of heroism and resistance

Theatre Review / 10 March 2025

Routine delinquency

10 March 2025

MARY CONWAY admires an accomplished drama that explores the consequences of a fatal punch on a desolate housing estate

Theatre Review / 7 March 2025

King queen

7 March 2025

GORDON PARSONS admires a version of Marlowe’s grim tragedy that strips it down to its gay essentials

Attila the Stockbroker Diary / 7 March 2025

Attila the Stockbroker Diary: March 7, 2025

7 March 2025

The Bard encounters Laibach’s revival of their 1987 album Opus Dei, and is stirred to verse

Culture / 7 March 2025

Subverting me softly

7 March 2025

LEIGH CARRIAGE remembers Roberta Flack, a spellbinding virtuoso of musical interpretation

Short Story / 7 March 2025

Bubble Man by Jonathan Taylor

7 March 2025

When Cassy’s father fails to connect with his daughter — and misses out on an evening in the Bitter End — a stranger’s self-mocking charm brings seething resentment.

Books / 6 March 2025

The enduring power of radical ideas

6 March 2025

PHIL KATZ applauds the biography of a man of principle that is a vibrant excavation of the radical tradition itself

Books / 6 March 2025

Hope for the best, expect the worst

6 March 2025

IAN SINCLAIR welcomes the first word on Transformative Adaptation, a new group that has grown out of Extinction Rebellion

Books / 6 March 2025

Gang warfare and class struggle

6 March 2025

GAVIN O’TOOLE welcomes a masterful study of gang behaviour in the favelas of Sao Paulo

Books / 6 March 2025

The power of mass demonstration

6 March 2025

ANDREW MURRAY is compelled by the moment of revolution in British history when Parliament had political intimacy with society

Cinema / 6 March 2025

Film round-up: March 6, 2025

6 March 2025

The Star's critic MARIA DUARTE Reviews of Twiggy, Mickey 17, Day of the Fight, and Marching Powder

Film of the week / 6 March 2025

The persecuted witness of apartheid

6 March 2025

The Star's critic MARIA DUARTE recommends the story of a courageous photographer whose life and work were dedicated to exposing racism

21st Century Poetry / 5 March 2025

Growing Up Is For Adults

5 March 2025

by Gordon Scapens

Poetry review / 5 March 2025

Uncanny echoes

5 March 2025

ALAN MORRISON hears the tradition of English Modernism in an unusually accomplished debut volume of poetry

ScreenCuba Film Festival 2025 / 4 March 2025

Free tickets for ScreenCuba 2025

4 March 2025

Helen Colley introduces this year’s ScreenCuba film festival with an exclusive offer to Morning Star readers

Letters from Latin America / 4 March 2025

Letters from Latin America with Leo Boix: March 4, 2025

4 March 2025

A pamphlet by British Latinx poet Patrick Romero McCafferty, poetry by Anglo-Argentinian Miguel Cullen, and a book of conjuring poems by Mexican Pedro Serrano

TV Series review / 4 March 2025

Punching up

4 March 2025

DENNIS BROE appreciates the work of TV writer Steven Knight, and his systematic exposure of the debilitating effects of British capitalism

BenchMarx / 4 March 2025

Don’t allow art - a common good - to be ripped off by corporations

4 March 2025

CAILEAN MCBRIDE proposes a response to the encroachment of AI in the arts by reducing the duration of copyright and assuring full protection

Call for short stories / 4 March 2025

Submit your short stories

4 March 2025

We want to publish work that lights up the page

Album Reviews / 3 March 2025

Global Routes with Tony Burke: March 3, 2025

3 March 2025

New releases by Samba Touré, Santrofi, and Piers Faccini & Ballake Sissoko

Theatre Review / 3 March 2025

Coming apart at the seams

3 March 2025

MAYER WAKEFIELD wonders why this 1978 drama merits a revival despite demonstrating that the underlying theme of racism in the UK remains relevant

Culture / 2 March 2025

You can’t murder liberation

2 March 2025

RON JACOBS recommends a book filled with history and political theory that provides both a basis and inspiration to create a way forward

Book Review / 2 March 2025

A socialist heroine

2 March 2025

DAVID NICHOLSON is fascinated by one of the early pioneers of the women’s movement and of the early days of the Labour Party

Exhibition Review / 28 February 2025

War-games: no way way

28 February 2025

SIMON DUFF explores the latest offering of the Chinese artist in exile AI WEI WEI

Theatre Review / 28 February 2025

Preparing for trauma

28 February 2025

MARY CONWAY applauds the dramatic reconstruction of one woman’s experience in one precise location in Gaza in the present era

Book Review / 27 February 2025

How black nurses beat TB

27 February 2025

MARJORIE MAYO recommends a remarkable book that restores another of history’s racially biased omissions

Book Review / 27 February 2025

A study in cynicism

27 February 2025

ANDREW MURRAY welcomes the inside story of Labour under Starmer for the revelations it offers as to who is pulling the strings

Books / 27 February 2025

The twin roots of our discontent

27 February 2025

ALEX HALL welcomes an accessible examination of the two strands of pro-capitalist thought which have defined the post-war economic policies of the West

Theatre Review / 27 February 2025

Juliet manqué

27 February 2025

PETER MASON suggests that someone should fulfil the dreams of a talented (and privileged) British Nigerian actor

Cinema / 27 February 2025

Film round-up: February 27, 2025

27 February 2025

The Star's critic MARIA DUARTE reviews Superboys of Malegaon, Food For Thought, The Summer With Carmen, and Fight or Flight

Film of the Week: / 27 February 2025

Total eclipse

27 February 2025

MARIA DUARTE recommends an homage to the iconic showgirl that understands them as working-class women

Interview / 26 February 2025

‘I enjoy the company of women musicians. It creates a different, supportive atmosphere on stage’

26 February 2025

CHRIS SEARLE speaks to Rwanda-born jazz vocalist INEZA

21st Century Poetry / 26 February 2025

Dynamic Waging

26 February 2025

by Ross Wilson

Theatre Review / 26 February 2025

The life and times of Eugene Bullard

26 February 2025

SUSAN DARLINGTON applauds a one-man show that navigates racist barriers to tell the story of the black pilot, boxer and jazz musician

Cinema / 25 February 2025

Berlin Film Festival 2025 round-up

25 February 2025

RITA DI SANTO picks the best films from a festival that adopted a ‘neutral’ political position, despite the looming presence of the AfD

Books / 25 February 2025

Squirming on the pin

25 February 2025

MATTHEW HAWKINS sees past the purple prose to themes of rejection and ageing in the autobiographical fiction of Rupert Everett

Opinion / 25 February 2025

Jonathan Coe - A novelist who takes politics seriously

25 February 2025

JOHN GREEN recommends that rare thing, a British novelist who is politically aware, entertaining and who writes to the moment

Music / 24 February 2025

Album reviews with Ian Sinclair: February 24, 2025

24 February 2025

New releases from Richard Dawson, Yazz Ahmed, and The Murder Capital

Books / 21 February 2025

Don’t ban the books

21 February 2025

SUE TURNER is inspired by the example of a librarian’s struggle to confront the book-banning movement

Books / 21 February 2025

Drowning, not waving

21 February 2025

PAUL DONOVAN cannot fault an analysis that points to the UK as one of the most unequal societies in the world, but struggles to share the author’s optimism

Books / 21 February 2025

Landmark new translation of Capital

21 February 2025

JON BALDWIN introduces a new translation of Karl Marx’s masterwork that is readable, relatable and refreshed

Album Review / 21 February 2025

Reg Meuross and Woody Guthrie: don’t miss!

21 February 2025

STEVE JOHNSON recommends a stunning new tribute from one great folk artist to another

Attila the Stockbroker Diary / 21 February 2025

Attila the Stockbroker Diary: February 21, 2025

21 February 2025

In which we accompany the Bard into Cymru to meet his musical accomplices, young and old

Theatre review / 20 February 2025

Against a sea of troubles

20 February 2025

GORDON PARSONS is bowled over by a skilfully stripped down and powerfully relevant production of Hamlet

Exhibition review / 20 February 2025

The eloquence of everyday objects

20 February 2025

ANDY HEDGECOCK relishes two exhibitions that blur the boundaries between art and community engagement

Cinema / 20 February 2025

Film round-up: February 20, 2025

20 February 2025

The Star's critic MARIA DUARTE reviews I Am Martin Parr, September Says, The Monkey, and The Gorge

Film of the week / 20 February 2025

A woman’s refusal to be victimised

20 February 2025

The Star's critic MARIA DUARTE recommends a profound and moving political drama about the families of those ‘disappeared’ by the Brazilian dictatorship

Theatre review / 19 February 2025

No woman no cry

19 February 2025

SIMON PARSONS is discomfited by an unflichingly negative portrait of motherhood and its trials

Theatre review / 19 February 2025

Churchill in Manchester

19 February 2025

PAUL FOLEY recommends an extraordinary double bill that packs a punch and leaves you reeling

Berlin Film Festival 2025 / 19 February 2025

Migrants highlighted in Festival opener

19 February 2025

RITA DI SANTO applauds a touching and witty opener that touches a hot topic in Germany: the future of the immigrant population

21st Century Poetry / 19 February 2025

Old

19 February 2025

by Jude Price

Theatre review / 19 February 2025

Predictive anti-drama

19 February 2025

MARY CONWAY is disappointed by a play about AI that results in a deadening disconnect for its audience

Follow the movement / 18 February 2025

Riotously alive

18 February 2025

MATTHEW HAWKINS pays tribute to the performance artist and costumier, Leigh Bowery

Books / 18 February 2025

Gauloises smoken here

18 February 2025

FIONA O’CONNOR recommends an accessible and entertaining survey of post-war French philosophy and its relation to contemporary capitalism

Theatre review / 18 February 2025

Neighbourhood black watch

18 February 2025

SIMON PARSONS applauds an insightful state-of-the-nation play that explores the growing class divide in South Africa

Album review / 17 February 2025

Outstanding blend of piano, flute and brass

17 February 2025

SIMON DUFF reviews a new composition by German composer and pianist Florian Weber that blurs the line between where improvisation ends and composition begins

Album reviews / 17 February 2025

Jazz album reviews with Chris Searle: February 17, 2025

17 February 2025

New releases from The Jim Mullen Quartet, Caroline Kraabel/John Edwards, and Matthew Muneses/Riza Printup

Exhibition Review / 14 February 2025

Wet Mud

14 February 2025

JAN WOOLF wallows in the historical mulch of post WW2 West Germany, and the resistant, challenging sense made of it by Anselm Kiefer

Theatre Review / 14 February 2025

Come down the farm

14 February 2025

PAUL DONOVAN applauds an adaptation that draws out the contemporary relevance of George Orwell’s satire

Opinion / 14 February 2025

How to rehearse the revolution

14 February 2025

ANA ISABEL NUNES points to the empowering legacy of Augusto Boal’s Theatre Of The Oppressed

Book Review / 14 February 2025

Remember Ghassan Kanafani

14 February 2025

CARLOS MARTINEZ welcomes the publication of the writings of the great Palestinian author, political theorist and spokesman for the PFLP

Book Review / 13 February 2025

(may cause offense)

13 February 2025

GAVIN O’TOOLE chuckles through a guide to politically correct usage of the literary canon

IN SEARCH OF RELEVANCE: Rafiki Theatre (Uganda) production B

Book Review / 13 February 2025

Africa in its own right

13 February 2025

ROGER McKENZIE welcomes an important contribution to the history of Africa, telling the story in its own right rather than in relation to Europeans

Book Review / 13 February 2025

Papal skulduggery

13 February 2025

PAUL DONOVAN is fascinated by an account of the long history of Catholic Church’s involvement in espionage

Cinema / 13 February 2025

Film round-up: February 13, 2025

13 February 2025

The Star's critic MARIA DUARTE review Cottontail, Memoir of a Snail, Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy, and Captain America: Brave New World

Film of the Week: / 13 February 2025

No direction home

13 February 2025

MARIA DUARTE recommends a tense thriller that uses Palestinian characters to explore the predicament of migrants in Europe

Theatre Review / 13 February 2025

Rom-communism

13 February 2025

MARY CONWAY is gripped by a hilarious and erudite new play that dramatises the making of the alliance that defeated fascism

Opera Review / 12 February 2025

Figaro magnifico

12 February 2025

DAVID NICHOLSON welcomes an overdue revival of WNO’s classic production, complete with protests against cuts

Live Music Review / 12 February 2025

Universal jazz kitchen

12 February 2025

CHRIS SEARLE samples the Kris Davis Trio at the Vortex and recommends highlights from the forthcoming programme

Live Music Review / 12 February 2025

Riley good

12 February 2025

SIMON DUFF immerses himself in the Kings Place D&B soundscape to relish a contemporary string quartet

21st Century Poetry: / 11 February 2025

The Semiotics of a Genocide Observed

11 February 2025

by Uzmah Ali

Album reviews / 10 February 2025

Album reviews with Ian Sinclair: February 11, 2025

10 February 2025

New releases from The Delines, Jim Ghedi and Nap Eyes

Book Reviews / 10 February 2025

England’s ghosts

10 February 2025

ANDY HEDGECOCK recommends two collections of short stories that use a single location to connect the narratives, and explore the limits of our ability to understand the world

Comedy / 10 February 2025

The beast within

10 February 2025

GEORGE FOGARTY applauds a show that punches down alt-right-friendly comedy

Literature / 10 February 2025

Letters from Latin America with Leo Boix: February 2025

10 February 2025

An outstanding novel by Chilean writer and activist Pedro Lemebel, a poetry pamphlet by Venezuelan Natasha Tiniacos, and a children’s book of haikus singing the beauty of Cuba

Books / 7 February 2025

Colonialism and violence

7 February 2025

RON JACOBS welcomes a Palestinian account of being subject to a brutal occupation supported by the most powerful governments in the world

Attila the Stockbroker Diary / 7 February 2025

Attila the Stockbroker Diary: February 7, 2025

7 February 2025

The bard ditches an unspecial relationship, encounters a new subdivision of metal, and discovers the cure for a stiff neck

Short Story / 7 February 2025

Brotherly Love by Angus Reid

7 February 2025

The phrase “cruel to be kind” comes from Hamlet, but Shakespeare’s Prince didn’t go in for kidnap, explosive punches, and cigarette deprivation. Tam is different.