MARIA DUARTE recommends a remarkable study of the friendship between a Palestinian and a Pakistani, broken by a hostile state
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Concrete realities of life at the margins
MATTHEW HAWKINS rakes through un-fancy words and flair-free summaries to find who and what might be flamboyant
PETER MASON is exhilarated by an exciting, well-considered and historically minded tribute to the great Trinidadian instrument
Reducing historical lives to ‘male’ and ‘female’ roles, we lose the nuance of those lives and a clearer understanding of past societies, suggests CLAIRE ISABELLA GILMOUR
CHRIS SEARLE relishes the genius of pianist Alexander Hawkins, his many ensembles, and his new album
The Stars Are Made of Concrete
Oldham Coliseum/Touring
5/5
THE STARS are Made of Concrete couldn’t be more topical. It opens with news footage of the junior hospital doctors’ dispute, with the main character Bev (Zoe Mathews) one of the thousands of NHS workers who have been made redundant without anyone noticing.
Like many, even though she has a son who’s unemployed, she doesn’t realise how difficult it is to get work and — even more importantly — claim the benefits for which she has paid into the system all her working life.
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