JON BALDWIN recommends a provocative assertion of how working-class culture can rethink knowledge
England’s ghosts
ANDY HEDGECOCK recommends two collections of short stories that use a single location to connect the narratives, and explore the limits of our ability to understand the world
These are vivid accounts of people’s experiences of far-right violence along with documentation of popular resistance, says MARJORIE MAYO
The Star's critic MARIA DUARTE, JOHN GREEN and ANGUS REID review An Army of Women, Julie Keeps Quiet, The Friend and The Ugly Stepsister
GORDON PARSONS squirms at a production that attempts to update Shakespeare’s comedy to a tale of Premier League football
Above a Gothic bar just down from Brighton station, something spooky is happening, suggests JAMES WALSH
PETER MASON is enthralled by an assembly of objects, ancient and modern, that have lain in the mud of London’s river
MIK SABIERS enjoys the theatrical feminist six piece who have a lot of fun that the audience feeds off as the set rolls on
The Hotel
Daisy Johnson, Jonathan Cape, £14.99
Barrowbeck
Andrew Michael Hurley, John Murray, £16.99
THESE books share a common origin. Commissioned as story sequences for Radio 4 by BBC producer Justine Willett, they were read by a distinguished cast of voice actors.
There are further similarities. They use the imagery and atmospheres of contemporary folk horror — a sense of foreboding, ambiguous perceptions, undercurrents of violence and a collision of the mythic with the mundane — to explore the influence of landscape on psychology.
Furthermore, both books focus on single locations and present a view of history in line with the fabulist Russell Hoban’s assertion that “the past is something that sticks to your shoes like cow shit.”
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While the group known as the Colourists certainly reinvigorated Scottish painting, a new show is a welcome chance to reassess them, writes ANGUS REID
ANGUS REID recommends an exquisite drama about the disturbing impact of the one child policy in contemporary China
The phrase “cruel to be kind” comes from Hamlet, but Shakespeare’s Prince didn’t go in for kidnap, explosive punches, and cigarette deprivation. Tam is different.
ANGUS REID deconstructs a popular contemporary novel aimed at a ‘queer’ young adult readership
