FIONA O’CONNOR and MARIA DUARTE review Romeria, Iron Maiden: Burning Ambition, Remarkably Bright Creatures, and The Sheep Detectives

LEO BOIX recommends a ravishing, full-bodied drama about the intensely demanding and emotional art of Kabuki theatre

On the day of the election, MARTIN GOLLAN reflects on the perennial relationship between the far-right and the back-hander

by Mohammed Yasser Al-Batniji

RUTH AYLETT recommends that this mixture of memoir, diary and poetry by a young Gazan writer be read as widely as possible

MARY CONWAY is gripped by the powerful emotional journeys portrayed by the parents of the perpetrator and victims of a mass shooting

FIONA O’CONNOR welcomes the the return of the Barbellion prize for disabled writers

ROBIN STYLES welcomes a boundary pushing work of fiction exploring the life and ideas of the godmother of modernism

LEO BOIX reviews a novel where shadows deceive and mortality looms, and a poetry collection that refuses to dim

ANGUS REID recommends that you discover a uniquely intimate community venue in central Edinburgh for an evening of beer and ambitious jazz

Reviews of Charlotte Cornfield, Michael Weston King, and Gun Outfit

Read this book and be aware that this is our history, says RUTH AYLETT

ANGUS REID appreciates the political candour expressed in Bansky’s latest and brilliant work of public art

ED WAUGH introduces a special event to commemorate the centenary of the 1926 General Strike

IAN SINCLAIR draws our attention to a film, available for everyone to use, to stimulate community discussion and active engagement in the climate emergency

JAMES WALSH previews the smorgasbord of talent and hilarity on show at the Brighton Fringe

PAUL DONOVAN recommends an energetic adaptation of Ken Kesey’s novel, that emphasises how psychiatry is a tool in the hands of a racist agenda

SIMON PARSONS recommends an outstanding revival of the musical based on Argentinian LGBT activist Manuel Puig’s groundbreaking novel

MATTHEW HAWKINS relishes the literary output of autistic writers, and recommends its insight to readers both including and beyond the community themselves

ALEX HALL is fascinated by a lucid and historically convincing account of how rent has dominated capitalist economies from feudalism to modernity

ELLIS RAE recommends a stunning history of the active role played by the British monarchy in establishing and profiting from slavery

GUILLERMO THOMAS is fascinated by a little known rebellion in the English colony of Granada, led by a mixed-race French officer and inspired by the French Revolution

MARIA DUARTE and ANGUS REID review Wild Foxes, Hokum, I’ve Seen All I Need to See, and Ada: My Mother the Architect

JOHN GREEN is riveted by the rare example of a disillusioned spymaster taking a swing at his paymasters and their folly

GORDON PARSONS is disappointed by the outdated form of a play set in Trinidad, whose subject is the switch from British to US imperial control

by Omar Sabbagh

by Omar Sabbagh

MARY CONWAY applauds the timely revival of Miller’s study of people fatally deformed by the economics of survival

JAMES WALSH revels in a miscellany of beautifully observed characters, ranging from the parodic to the frankly batshit

MALC McGOOKIN appreciates a graphic novel that records the history of the legendary peace camp and surveys the state of the right to protest in contemporary Britain

Although this account of the Beatles’ manager is exquisitely drawn, MARY CONWAY wishes it embraced the bigger picture of the band’s explosive impact

New releases from Otherlands Trio, Isabelle Bodenseh, Kris Davis and the Lutoslawski Quartet

SYLVIA HIKINS recommends a fascinating, revealing, superbly acted evening of theatre

STEVEN ANDREW praises a beautifully written and enjoyable read

ROGER McKENZIE suggest this book is used as a resource to help spark resistance to the rise of nuclear power

The allies of the US, like our own country, end up dominated and cowed, concludes ALEX HALL

LYNDA GRAHAM looks at how successive government allowed the water companies take us all for a ride

DAVID NICHOLSON relies on 10-year-old SKYLAR and nine-year-old BEHATI’s insights when recommending this pirate cum sea monsters romp

Read my lips: Tai Haf Heb Drigolyn (Uninhabited Summer Houses), Rethink Everything

In the interventionist spirit of of Atelier Populaire Mazen Kerbaj Gaza in My Phone ‘notebook’ deeply touches JAMIE BRITTON

SUSAN DARLINGTON enjoys an imaginative revival of the dance classic

GORDON PARSONS salutes the apt return of Brecht’s vaudevillian cartoon drama that retains the vitality of the boxing or the circus ring

MARIA DUARTE and JOHN GREEN review Michael, The North, Exit 8, Rose of Nevada

ANDY HEDGECOCK recommends a gripping and touching drama, based on a true story, about a Serbian refugee rebuilding his life in Bristol

New releases from Public Image Ltd, William Basinski, John Luther Adams

By Sally Spiers

CHRIS SEARLE talks to the celebrated saxophonist COURTNEY PINE

DAVID YEARSLEY has fun recalling George Harrison’s mischievous Taxman, which was released 60 years ago

Banksy’s identity may have been published – but was the investigation in the public interest, asks PETER BENGTSEN

IAN SINCLAIR recommends a documentary that highlights the multifarious benefits of legalising access to land throughout England

New releases from Kneecap, Sam Blasucci, and Juni Habel

DAVID NICHOLSON recommends the staging of this Wagnerian classic minus one or two insignificant quibbles

CHRIS MOSS joins the hunt in Argentina for the works of Poland’s most enigmatic exile

SYLVIA HIKINS welcomes a survey of successful contemporary worker co-operatives and economy-based co-operative systems

RON JACOBS recommends a book that charts the disparate circumstances that defined the lives of two prominent black Afro-Americans — one a communist, the other an anti-communist

JOHN GREEN relishes the record of a life well lived in the service of the fight for justice and socialism

EWAN KOTZ got to the Jacaranda Baltic in Liverpool only to be taken by strong songwriting of the emerging all-women Lime Garden

TONY BURKE talks to Garth Cartwright author of Princes Amongst Men — Journeys With Romani Gypsy Musicians

The Star's critics ANDY HEDGECOCK and MARIA DUARTE review The Blue Trail, Kiss of the Spider Woman, Colours of Time, Glenrothan

JOHN GREEN has reservations about a film that tries hard to rise above the cliches but in the end fails to do so

Reviews of a compelling account of a tragedy that shook Chile in 2005, a poetry collection about home and belonging, and a bilingual poetry collection on migration, fire, and art, drawing on the work of Hieronymus Bosch

SETH SANDRONSKY recommends a production that looks back at the political Tinseltown in the mid-1970s when US cinema ‘didn’t pander to trends’

CHRIS SEARLE on Mike Westbrook who died aged 90

FINOLA SCOTT relishes a collection of verse in Scots that, among other things, meditates on the Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu

STEVE JOHNSON speaks to JIM MORAY about an album that marks 25 years since his first

by Chalice Am Bergris

SAHAR MARANLOU explores a novella, newly translated and republished in English that tells the history of Iran through women’s bodies

DENNIS BROE observes how cutbacks, mergers and AI create content detached from both reality and history itself

CHRISTOPHE DOMEC relishes a dizzyingly precise fiction that relays the problem of reporting the truth

New releases from Claire Vine, Amy Leach and Alasdair Paul, Brooks Williams and Aaron Catlow

JENNY FARRELL recommends an earthy production, driven by two magnificent performances

MARY DAVIS welcomes a remarkable documentary about the general strike — politically spot on, and featuring accounts from the strikers themselves — that is available for screenings

New releases from Peruvian Ranil y Su Conjunto Tropical, Leve Leve: Sao Tome & Principe, and South African BCUC

SCOTT ALSWORTH revels in the political subtext and exquisite visuals of Cuba’s first-ever videogame

DAVID NICHOLSON applauds the revival of a joyous production that deals with choirs, competitions and communism

PETER MASON welcomes collected writings from Britain’s first black female publisher that focus on the place of black writers in literature

RICHARD SHILLCOCK examines an enjoyable, but philosophically conventional book, and urges Marxists to employ their capacity to embrace the totality in any explanation

BRENT CUTLER welcomes a book stands as a testimony to those who fought against the evil institution of slavery

MARTIN GRAHAM welcomes, with reservations, a scholarly addition to the unfinished business of understanding how capital works on a world scale

The bard tours Finland and tampers with the cuisine

MICHAL BONCZA and MARIA DUARTE review The Stranger, Undertone, and Outcome

MARIA DUARTE relishes the outrageous true story of two working-class lads from Dundee who conned the music industry

WILL STONE applauds the anniversary tour of Pills 'n' Thrills and Bellyaches by Madchester icons, Shaun and Bez

by Reshma Ruia

JORDAN PHIZACKLEA-CULLEN reminds us of a sometimes overlooked political singer-songwriter, on the 50th anniversary of his untimely death

MARY CONWAY is compelled by the production but repelled by the sleaze in a revival of Christopher Hampton’s play

JAN WOOLF invigilates images that meditate on Palestine, and the people who witness them

A murderous convention of crime writers, a hymn to nursing, a monster hunt, and robber baron capitalism

BEN COWLES samples the many sonic and social therapies of Manchester Punk Festival 2026, and is ready again to smash capitalism

New releases from Brown Horse, Johnny Blue Skies & The Dark Clouds, and The Sophs

MARY CONWAY is disappointed by a three-hander that broaches big themes, but doesn’t transcend dry academia 

DAN GLAZEBROOK eavesdrops on the bourgeois intelligentsia and the stories it tells itself at this moment of crisis

DENNIS BROE relishes the working class characters of the BBC’s Can You Keep A Secret, and Hulu’s Sunny Nights

JAN WOOLF is bowled over by a major retrospective for the YBA artist

LEO BOIX, ANGUS REID and MARIA DUARTE review Night Stage, Two Women, Kim Novak’s Vertigo, and Fuze

MARIA DUARTE refuses to disclose the twist by which a conventional rom-com is undone by a universal US malaise

by Kevin Scheepers

CHRIS SEARLE relishes the relevance and sheer poetic dexterity of an excellent imagining of the divided destiny of the Levellers

KATHRYN JOHNSON recommends the work of Norman Kaplan that was a tool in the struggle against apartheid in South Africa

GAVIN O’TOOLE welcomes a bold feminist subversion of classic folktales that are ubiquitous in the Irish imagination

A novel by Mexican Juan Pablo Villalobos, poetry by Mexican Ingrid Bringas, and a biography by Argentinian Mercedes Halfon

STEVE JOHNSON recommends an exceptional album that explores the narrative folk tradition often with a strong political message

ELLIS RAE is disappointed by the revival of a nihilistic play that fails to offer alternatives for social change

PAUL DONOVAN applauds an entertaining dramatisation of the famous dispute that gives insight into the struggle, and Murdoch’s unscrupulous mendacity

ALISON BAKER casts an appreciative eye over Dennis the Menace at 75

Reviews of Test Dept, Madli Marje Gildemann, and Heinz Holliger and Marie-Lise Schupbach

ROGER McKENZIE grooves to the message that jazz supports, expresses and sparks fresh political movements and ideas

JOHN GREEN appreciates an informative and readable account of the nation state and its current dilemmas, but doubts the solutions this author has to offer