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Culture

Culture / 15 April 2025

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

Culture / 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

Culture / 14 April 2025

Lowry of the lens

14 April 2025

JOHN GREEN relishes photography that unfolds a longstanding and poetic relationship with Leeds

Culture / 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

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

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

Culture / 17 April 2025

Film roundup with ANGUS REID, ANDY HEDGECOCK and MICHAL BONCZA

17 April 2025

Reviews of I Am Love, The Penguin Lessons, Freaky Tales, The Thicket

Culture / 17 April 2025

The phenomenal Edna O’Brien

17 April 2025

JOHN GREEN recommends a beautifully crafted documentary

Culture / 16 April 2025

21st century poetry: 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

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

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.