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EWAN CAMERON witnesses a political farce that lacks a clear message
ROUND-UP 2016
Star columnists run through what’s impressed them this year
EWAN CAMERON picks out two fascinating music shows, fusing the Korean, and the Celtic, with the modern
BENJAMIN POTHIER suggests that Palaeolithic cave paintings in Spain point to the ceremonial use of hallucinogenic flora
The bard confirms that the right has a humour bypass, and replays the English Revolution on period instruments
MARIA DUARTE and ANDY HEDGECOCK review Sunny Dancer, Tony, Songs of Forgotten Trees, and The End of Oak Street
JOHN GREEN relishes a powerful and moving drama that explores the lived realities of west London’s Punjabi community
MARTIN HALL welcomes a plea for greater compassion between believer and non-believer via the framework of philosophical enquiry
THEATRE
GORDON PARSONS
A POWERFUL production of Eugene O’Neill’s epic family drama Long Day’s Journey into Night at Bristol Old Vic brought home the playwright’s description of a work written in “tears and blood.”
For once, the play did not focus primarily on the frustration of James Tyrone, with Jeremy Irons’s modulated performance conveying the guilt-ridden desperation of dealing with his damaged family. It allowed Lesley Manville’s Mary Tyrone, agonisingly escaping further into her drug-tortured dreams, to register the play’s dramatic tension.
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Family issues and dragon-fuelled history amount to a vacuous spectacle that ill-fits the theatre, muses SIMON PARSONS
CHRIS SEARLE waxes lyrical over Alan Skidmore’s tenor-tonic, Jeremy Pelt, and the Yusef Lateef Quartet
CHRIS SEARLE recommends a work of love and deep admiration for a great musician
CHRIS SEARLE recommends a new album featuring Pat Thomas and Ahmed, and marvels at the tempestuous power of a live performance