MARIA DUARTE recommends a remarkable study of the friendship between a Palestinian and a Pakistani, broken by a hostile state
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The original girl band
SYLVIA HIKINS relishes a brilliant untold Merseybeat story of how four talented women dared to break the mould
Girls Don't Play Guitars: Val, Sylvia, Pam and Mary.
[Atanas Paskalev]
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
Girls Don’t Play Guitars
Royal Court Theatre, Liverpool
IN the early 1960s, changing their name from The Squaws to the fictional symbol of Liverpool, the four Liverbirds were one of the very few female bands on the Merseybeat scene, as well as one of the first all female rock and roll bands in the world. Yet how many of us have even heard of them?
Inspired by the Beatles, they went down to the Cavern Club to see what the Fab Four thought of an all-girl band. The response from John Lennon was his now infamous remark: “Girls don’t play guitars.” Unsurprisingly, The Liver Birds were shocked by this and they became even more determined to prove Lennon wrong.
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SIMON PARSONS applauds the timely revival of a play about solidarity and betrayal within Britain’s Pakistani community
SYLVIA HIKINS recommends a fascinating, revealing, superbly acted evening of theatre
SYLVIA HIKINS relishes Jeanette Winterson’s brilliant hijack of 1001 Nights to push aside the boundaries set by others
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