Culture | Morning Star

Culture

Music / 15 April 2025

Album Reviews: April 21, 2025

15 April 2025

STEVE JOHNSON, CHRIS SEARLE and TONY BURKE review 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

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

(L to R) Arian Nik as Samir, Shazia Nicholls as Faiza) Sabrina Sandhu as Harleen

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

Album Reviews: April 21, 2025

15 April 2025

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

Culture / 21 April 2025

Testy testy testy

21 April 2025

Music review / 21 April 2025

Exploding cocktails

21 April 2025

MIK SABIERS admires a band that delivers short, sharp shocks to the system

Album reviews / 21 April 2025

Album reviews with Ian Sinclair: April 21, 2025

21 April 2025

New releases from Brown Horse, Craig Finn, and Julien Baker & TORRES

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.

Theatre review / 7 February 2025

The drama of a woman’s life

7 February 2025

MARY CONWAY recommends a beautifully judged performance that shines a light on the experience of all female war babies and boomers

Cinema / 7 February 2025

Film round-up: February 7, 2025

7 February 2025

The Star's critic MARIA DUARTE reviews September 5, The Fire Inside, Bring Them Down, and Love Hurts

Book Review / 6 February 2025

The north African struggle

6 February 2025

JOE GILL welcomes a helpful, if incomplete, guide to the the native and Islamic struggles against imperial and colonial powers in north Africa

Theatre Review / 6 February 2025

The signs of grief

6 February 2025

SIMON PARSONS applauds an expressive and delicate drama that depicts a deaf son’s Hindu funeral ceremony for his father

Film of the Week: / 6 February 2025

Iranian thriller, to be handled with care

6 February 2025

The Star's critic MARIA DUARTE is enthralled by a complex thriller, but advises caution in accepting its depiction of reality

Theatre review / 6 February 2025

Oddipus

6 February 2025

WILL STONE is intrigued, and a little baffled by a strangely unique telling of the classic Sophocles play

Book Review / 5 February 2025

Lumumba’s right hand woman

5 February 2025

ROGER MCKENZIE recommends an insider's view of the fight for African independence, as experienced by an important and neglected woman

Books / 5 February 2025

The long reach of the medieval Islamic workforce

5 February 2025

WILL PODMORE is enthralled by the convincing case that guilds of Islamic craftsmen were responsible for the European gothic style

Theatre Review / 5 February 2025

Tradwife pic dilemma

5 February 2025

PETER MASON applauds a thought-provoking study of the relationship between a grieving woman and her photographer

Interview / 5 February 2025

Living the highlife

5 February 2025

CHRIS SEARLE speaks to Ghanaian trumpeter PETER SOMUAH

Theatre Review / 5 February 2025

Plotless musical flops

5 February 2025

PETER MASON points out that it takes more than a string of poppy power ballads to make a satisfactory drama

21st Century Poetry: / 5 February 2025

Fatima’s Bird

5 February 2025

by Mike Jenkins

Book Review / 4 February 2025

The Golden Age of Slavery

4 February 2025

CAROLINE FOWLER explains how the slave trade helped establish the ‘golden age’ of Dutch painting and where to find its hidden traces

Opinion / 4 February 2025

Where is the 21st-century protest song?

4 February 2025

JOHN NEWSHAM draws attention to the uncompromising path of US singer/songwriter CONOR OBERST

Theatre Review / 4 February 2025

If Shamima Begum had a sister

4 February 2025

SIMON PARSONS applauds a tense and thoughtful production that regularly challenges our political engagement and prejudices

TV Series Review / 3 February 2025

Italian atrocity

3 February 2025

JOHN FOOT welcomes a depiction of the fascist dictator’s rise to power that points the finger of blame at his enablers

Album reviews / 3 February 2025

Album reviews with Kevin Bryan: February 3, 2025

3 February 2025

New releases from Loudon Wainwright III, Flamin’ Groovies, and Wishbone Ash

Exhibition review / 31 January 2025

Political art draws large crowds

31 January 2025

CHARLOTTE DIXON recommends an exhibition that spits in the face of politicians, police and oil giants

Appreciation / 31 January 2025

Outstanding Northern Irish poet

31 January 2025

JENNY FARRELL pays tribute to the late Michael Longley, whose poetry, forged in the time of The Troubles, speaks to today’s wars

Appeal / 31 January 2025

Let’s hear Palestinian voices

31 January 2025

HENRY BELL introduces an initiative to bring Palestinian artists to the Edinburgh festival, gives some context, and appeals for your support

Cinema / 30 January 2025

Film round-up: January 30, 2025

30 January 2025

The Star's critic MARIA DUARTE reviews Companion, Saturday Night, The Tasting, and The Colours Within

Film of the week / 30 January 2025

Genius at work

30 January 2025

The Star's critic MARIA DUARTE is dazzled by an extraordinary performance in a classic Mike Leigh film

Books / 29 January 2025

A lifetime’s achievement

29 January 2025

GABRIEL ROCKHILL recommends a perfect primer on contemporary China

Books / 29 January 2025

Spain’s ancient stronghold

29 January 2025

CHRIS MOSS is gripped by the account of a city that is point of embarkation for conquest and adventure, and arrival stage for dreamers and despots

Books / 29 January 2025

Fantasy economics

29 January 2025

WILL PODMORE recommends an analysis of the utopian thinking that underlies the rise of bourgeois economics

Books / 29 January 2025

When you can’t see the wood for the trees

29 January 2025

JOHN GREEN is dissatisfied with a book that fails to address the promotion of ignorance as a ruling-class strategy to maintain control

BenchMarx / 29 January 2025

Statues of limitation

29 January 2025

MICHAL BONCZA draws attention to the problematic position that statues of historical figures have in our public spaces

Theatre review / 29 January 2025

Life as bitter farce

29 January 2025

MARY CONWAY applauds a study of comedians in whose cheap prejudice the tenets of the emerging political right are crystal clear

21st Century Poetry / 29 January 2025

The Beach On The Med

29 January 2025

By Michael Rosen

Marxist notes on music / 29 January 2025

‘People are fearful, but I guarantee they will hear things they have never heard before’

29 January 2025

In advance of their performances in London BEN LUNN speaks to PETER PAUL KAINRATH, artistic director of Klangforum Wien

Cartoon / 28 January 2025

Simulated intelligence

28 January 2025

Citizen Chicane contemplates the human face of AI

Jazz / 28 January 2025

Upcoming jazz with Chris Searle: January 28, 2025

28 January 2025

An unlikely venue hosts a memorable concert, and has future treats in store

Books / 28 January 2025

A toxic German fairytale

28 January 2025

JOHN GREEN takes issue with a mainstream novel designed to denigrate the GDR

Literature / 28 January 2025

Letters from Latin America with Leo Boix: January 28, 2025

28 January 2025

LEO BOIX reviews Cuban poet Carlos Pintado; Mexican poet Diana Garza Islas; Mexican American writer and critic Rigoberto Gonzalez; and Brazilian poet Haroldo de Campos

BenchMarx / 28 January 2025

Frantz Fanon and the mestizo novel

28 January 2025

ANGUS REID deconstructs a popular contemporary novel aimed at a ‘queer’ young adult readership

Holocaust Memorial Day / 27 January 2025

Understanding Genocide

27 January 2025

JEAN BOASE-BEIER introduces some of the poetry that help us to understand genocides past and present

Album reviews / 27 January 2025

Album reviews with Ian Sinclair: January 27, 2025

27 January 2025

New releases from Nadia Reid, Manic Street Preachers and Mathias Eick

Exhibition review / 24 January 2025

Life with Sicily’s Mafia

24 January 2025

ANNA SERGI recommends the first UK exhibition of a remarkable female photographer who studied the impact of mafia violence on everyday life

Attila the Stockbroker Diary / 24 January 2025

Attila the Stockbroker Diary: January 24, 2025

24 January 2025

The bard tunes into the message crooned by the newly self-appointed masters of the universe

Opinion / 24 January 2025

Right wing dicks in their boiler suits

24 January 2025

It is painful that Donald Trump used David Bowie’s music during his campaign when the singer’s work was directly critical of his politics, judges PETER KENWORTHY

Cinema / 24 January 2025

Film round-up: January 24, 2025

24 January 2025

The Star's critic MARIA DUARTE reviews Presence, Flight Risk, Emanuelle and Back in Action

Film of the week / 23 January 2025

Brute power

23 January 2025

The Star's critic MARIA DUARTE recommends an epic exploration of the post war immigrant experience in the US

Books / 23 January 2025

The importance of optimism

23 January 2025

WILL PODMORE is enlightened by the achievements of a 17th century scientist whose work anticipates computer programming as well as Marx’s materialism

Books / 23 January 2025

Faust and furious

23 January 2025

GORDON PARSONS recommends the biography of the German polymath whose life provides an interesting take on a revolutionary age

Books / 22 January 2025

The weakness of the radical right

22 January 2025

GAVIN O’TOOLE welcomes an analysis of the radical right in Latin America as polarising ‘influencers’ who ignore material values

Books / 22 January 2025

What happened to old Nazis?

22 January 2025

JOHN GREEN advises caution when reading a highly informative account of the way thousands of top Nazis escaped justice and found employment in the West

Interview / 22 January 2025

‘When it comes to Britain’s colonial past, music can be part of that reckoning’

22 January 2025

CHRIS SEARLE speaks to British Nigerian/Jamaican pianist ROELLA OLORO

21st Century Poetry / 22 January 2025

Woman Life Freedom

22 January 2025

by Nasrin Parvaz

Opinion / 21 January 2025

AI and socialism

21 January 2025

Software engineer SCOTT ALSWORTH explains to his mother

Book Review / 21 January 2025

The right to write

21 January 2025

REBECCA LOWE admires a complex, multi-layered working-class novel whose heart is the writer's self-discovery as a poet

Opinion / 21 January 2025

Ear, nose, throat and fingers

21 January 2025

DAVID YEARSLEY compares Timothee Chalamet’s impersonation of Dylan to the real thing

TV Series Review / 20 January 2025

Womble hell

20 January 2025

JAMES HARRISON reviews a TV series that finds a compelling metaphor for people waking up from class oppression

Music / 20 January 2025

Album reviews with Kevin Bryan: January 20, 2025

20 January 2025

Reviews of Davy Graham, Nick Magnus, and Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger & The Trinity

Theatre Review / 20 January 2025

Outstanding Windrush drama

20 January 2025

MARY CONWAY applauds a brilliant theatrical adaptation of Sam Selvon’s classic 1950s novel of oppression, betrayal and resilience

Opinion / 16 January 2025

Belfast’s finest

16 January 2025

An unexpected favourite at Sunday’s Golden Globes, JENNY FARRELL inspects the political context of the film Kneecap and its ferocious advocacy of the Irish language

Albums / 16 January 2025

Folk albums with Steve Jonson: January 16, 2025

16 January 2025

New releases from Thorpe and Morrison, Daria Kulesh, and Will Finn and Rosie Calvert

Exhibition review / 16 January 2025

Bringing home the Bacon

16 January 2025

RINA ARYA confronts the brutal operation of Francis Bacon’s approach to portraiture

Cinema / 16 January 2025

Film round-up: January 16, 2025

16 January 2025

The Star's critic MARIA DUARTE reviews Here, Vermiglio, William Tell and Wolf Man

Film of the week / 16 January 2025

Becoming Dylan

16 January 2025

The Star's critic MARIA DUARTE recommends an impressive impersonation of Bob Dylan

Books / 16 January 2025

A communist vision for Cornwall

16 January 2025

TONY CONWAY recommends a welcome overview of Cornwall that traces its industrialisation, class differences and path to a socialist future

Books / 16 January 2025

Spotlight on Paraguay

16 January 2025

JOHN GREEN relishes the rediscovery of a Spanish anarchist and radical, and the light he throws on the little-known story of Paraguay

Books / 16 January 2025

Sophisticated, but not intelligent

16 January 2025

ANDY HEDGECOCK is inspired by accessible insights into the theory, function and psychological impact of our digital tools

Books / 16 January 2025

Extended trot

16 January 2025

STEVEN ANDREW recommends an informed and personable work that contains as many ommisions as it does analyses

21st Century poetry / 15 January 2025

The Russian Revolution in Bathgate

15 January 2025

by Alistair Findlay

Book Review / 15 January 2025

Praxis Makes Perfect

15 January 2025

Emphasising his continuous engagement in labour movement struggles, ALISTAIR FINDLAY salutes John Foster’s contribution as activist, strategist, intellectual and defender of the Morning Star

Interview / 14 January 2025

Radical Film Network

14 January 2025

Brett Gregory speaks to STEVE PRESENCE and MATTHIAS KISPERT, co-conveners of the RFN, the largest alternative film/media communication hub in the world

Literature / 14 January 2025

Clarissa in times of Covid

14 January 2025

RON JACOBS relishes a riotous epistolary novel of revenge against sexual harassment and patriarchy

Music review / 14 January 2025

A force to be reckoned with

14 January 2025

EWAN KOTZ relishes a veteran Glasgow band that have lost none of their verve for live performance

Opinion / 14 January 2025

Translating fiction: a moral case for AI?

14 January 2025

ANDY MIAH advocates the use of AI to assist people by expanding access to global literature and culture

Album review / 13 January 2025

The sound of self-loathing

13 January 2025

EWAN KOTZ tunes into a chilling and subversive album that speaks for a splintered US, its political apathy and complicity in war-crimes

Album reviews / 13 January 2025

Album reviews with Ian Sinclair: January 13, 2025

13 January 2025

New releases from Mary Chapin Carpenter, Julie Fowlis, Karine Polwart; The Weather Station; and Sam Amidon

Book Review / 10 January 2025

Erdogan’s neo Sultanate

10 January 2025

ANGUS REID wrestles with a detailed analysis of the competing religious alliances behind the ascendancy of conservative nationalism in today’s Turkey

Books / 10 January 2025

Navigating fatphobia

10 January 2025

ROSIE NELSON applauds a graphic novel that asks what does it mean to exist as a fat person in a fatphobic society?

Books / 10 January 2025

Here’s the story, Doc

10 January 2025

JONATHAN TAYLOR is moved by the plea to replace mechanistic medicine with a ‘narrative’ approach based on imagination and humanity

Books / 10 January 2025

Lessons from the global South

10 January 2025

JOHN GRAVERSGAARD recommends a study of trade union organising that brings together exemplary lessons from the Uk and Kenya

Opinion / 10 January 2025

Could you live on this?

10 January 2025

MARGARET HEFFERNAN draws attention to a new report on the conditions of financial precariousness facing visual artists

Short Story / 10 January 2025

The Life of Your Dreams by SJ Bradley

10 January 2025

Anna flees the floods and fires of Earth, but life as a migrant worker on Ganglian-A is grim and exploitative. Her plan of escape is simple and, paradoxically, rocket science

Attila the Stockbroker Diary / 10 January 2025

Attila the Stockbroker Diary: January 10, 2025

10 January 2025

The bard’s indefatigable knack for rhythm and rhyme tunes into the gloomy zeitgeist and comes out cheerful

Cinema / 10 January 2025

Film round-up: January 10, 2025

10 January 2025

The Star's critic MARIA DUARTE reviews Nickel Boys, Bank of Dave 2: The Loan Ranger, Babygirl, and Maria

Film of the Week: / 9 January 2025

Whose pain?

9 January 2025

MARIA DUARTE recommends a buddy road-trip comedy that deals with third generation Holocaust trauma

Theatre Review / 8 January 2025

Martin Luther King revisited

8 January 2025

MAYER WAKEFIELD salutes a fresh angle on the conflicted soul that led the civil rights movement

21st Century Poetry / 8 January 2025

Esperanto Poem

8 January 2025

by Andy Jackson

Preview / 7 January 2025

A brilliant performance

7 January 2025

LOUIS BAYMAN admires Mike Leigh’s bleakly comic take on a black woman’s experience of depression that offers no easy answers

Crime Fiction / 7 January 2025

Crime fiction with Mat Coward: January 7, 2025

7 January 2025

A late Christmas cornucopia, a Canadian wolf, a dodgy motel and Peter Diamond’s last bow

Fiction / 7 January 2025

Stepping back from activism

7 January 2025

JENNY FARRELL detects a departure from the political trajectory of Rooney’s previous work

Fiction / 7 January 2025

Domestic pyrotechnics

7 January 2025

MATTHEW HAWKINS is drawn into the everyday lives of women and girls in Muslim communities in southern India

Album review / 6 January 2025

Butcher Bastards

6 January 2025

DAVID NICHOLSON draws attention to an album of music and poetry that channels a first-hand experience of Gaza

Live Music Review / 6 January 2025

Protest and celebration unite

6 January 2025

DAVID NICHOLSON sees in the new year in grand orchestral style, courtesy of the fine musicians of the WNO

Interview / 6 January 2025

‘Burlap Heroes are Saul Bellow’s persons struggling just to exist’

6 January 2025

CHRIS SEARLE speaks with US trumpeter NATE WOOLEY

Books / 5 January 2025

The case against ‘Western’ Marxism

5 January 2025

RICHARD CLARKE applauds the assertion that Western Marxism represents a withdrawal from action to change the world into the academy

Books / 5 January 2025

The fatal continuity of the British ruling class

5 January 2025

WILL PODMORE is intrigued by a study the British ruling class that follows statistical analysis with totally inadequate proposals for change

Books / 5 January 2025

Kunama Namadgi (snowy mountain) or Mount Kosciuszko? That is the question

5 January 2025

DARIUS VON GUTTNER SPORZYNSKI welcomes the biography of an 18th-century social reformer whose name sits atop Australia’s highest mountain

Books / 5 January 2025

Syria After Assad

5 January 2025

RON JACOBS recommends a timely pamphlet that provides both explanation and historical context for the fall of Assad

Best of 2024 / 3 January 2025

Angus Reid selects his highlights

3 January 2025

A landmark work of gay ethnography, an avant-garde fusion of folk and modernity, and a chance comment in a great interview

TV Series / 3 January 2025

Thrillers: Christmas fluff vs Polish noir

3 January 2025

JONAH RASKIN compares the tepid fare of the Netflix series Black Doves with a gritty Polish alternative

Book Review / 3 January 2025

Class War as Culture War

3 January 2025

ALISTAIR FINDLAY welcomes a collection of essays from one of the cultural left’s most respected speakers and activists

Opinion / 3 January 2025

K-pop hits become anthems of South Korea’s protests against President Yoon

3 January 2025

HYUN KYONG HANNAH CHANG draws attention to the role that music has always played in South Korean protest

Culture / 30 December 2024

Best albums of 2024 with Tony Burke

30 December 2024

A horn of plenty, no less!

Culture / 30 December 2024

Best visual arts exhibitions of 2024 with Christine Lindey

30 December 2024

From van Gogh to Sonia Boyce, from Hew Locke to Patrick Carpenter and... Pablo Picasso

Culture / 30 December 2024

We shall overcome

30 December 2024

BEN LUNN highly recommends a cantata that encapsulates the Palestinian peoples' profound desire for peace