Back from a mini tour of Yorkshire and Stockport and cheering for supporting act Indignation Meeting
Superb working-class cabaret
ANDY HEDGECOCK applauds the results of a new initiative by Equity that gives free rein to working-class talent
fair play
ALISTAR FINDLAY is mesmerised by this multiple ‘Visions of Scotland’ assault on the audience’s eyes and senses
The Star's critics ANGUS REID, ANDY HEDGECOCK and MICHAL BONCZA reviews I Am Love, The Penguin Lessons, Freaky Tales, The Thicket
MAYER WAKEFIELD has reservations about the direction of a play centered on a DVLA re-training session for three British-Pakistani motorists
New releases from Steve Knightley, Jupiter & Okwess, Jason Palmer, Lisa Knapp and Gerry Driver, Kin'Gongolo Kiniata, Ingrid Laubrock/Tom Rainey, Dan Sealey, Simin Tande, PAZ
JOHN GREEN relishes photography that unfolds a longstanding and poetic relationship with Leeds
A uncomfortably misogynistic authorial voice that sometimes seems to lack insight troubles FIONA O’CONNOR
Fair Play Cabaret
Quorn Grange Hotel, Leicestershire (GFTU Education Trust)
DRIVING across the Leicestershire Wolds to Quorn, I narrowly avoid a deer caught in my headlights. It’s fitting that an evening of exhilarating chaos begins with an adrenaline rush.
Fair Play Cabaret opens with a set by compere Mark Thomas. Warming up a small and slightly inhibited audience takes considerable confidence and 40 years’ experience of stagecraft. Thomas breaks the fourth wall, talks about “workshopping” an apparently underappreciated punchline and urges us to rearrange the seating to make performers feel “embraced.” It works brilliantly.
As funny and informative as his much-missed Channel 4 documentaries, Thomas’s act lurches through a range of themes — the vast acreage of land consumed by golf, an airport runway delay, anxieties about the Starmer government and an appearance at a literary festival in Lewes, in the slot before Andrea Leadsom.
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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
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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
