MARIA DUARTE recommends a remarkable study of the friendship between a Palestinian and a Pakistani, broken by a hostile state
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Bell tolls for Hemingway as a dramatist
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 Fifth Column
Southwark Playhouse, London SE1
3/5
ERNEST Hemingway came clean about his expectations of the critical reception for the Fifth Column when he wrote: “The Hotel Florida, where we lived and worked, was struck by more than 30 high-explosive shells.
“So if it is not a good play perhaps that is what is the matter with it.” He was right — his only full-length drama is not good. But director Tricia Thorns and the actors make full use of a claustrophobic set to create a sense of the siege conditions under which it was written at the height of the Spanish civil war in 1937.
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