JOHN GREEN surveys the remarkable career of screenwriter Malcolm Hulke and the essential part played by his membership of the Communist Party
How should a working class playwright be celebrated?
LEWIS FROST reports from an event to commemorate the late Edward Bond
The Star's critic MARIA DUARTE reviews Last Breath, Sister Midnight, Opus, and The Electric State
HENRY BELL is moved by the account of scientists under seige in Leningrad who preferred to starve rather than sacrifice their life-saving work
RUTH AYLETT recommends two anthologies: one that bears witness to refugee and immigrant experiences, and the other to our political relationship to water
SETH SANDRONSKY appreciates a fresh take on a 100-year-old novel that helps to contextualise the current moment of conspicuous wealth, waste and climate chaos
A no-nonsense ex-Garda female cop, Scandi-noir’s newest flawed hero, the lure of Aussie gold, and unexpected decency in Silicon valley
JAN WOOLF doubts that soft-core musical is the best way to transmit an important story of heroism and resistance
A MEMORIAL for playwright Edward Bond took place at Park Theatre, Finsbury Park, on Sunday August 11. The aim was to create an act or action to commemorate the life of Edward Bond.
It was organised by Sam Fairbrother and Dex of the “Commission for New and Old Art” because nothing so far had been organised to commemorate the life of one of the country’s great playwrights.
Many of the attendees had some experience of acting or staging Bond’s work, but none of theatre’s grandees or the more recent writers inspired by Bond were present. Not that that was a surprise, as Bond’s biographer Tony Coult (one of the few who maintained a working relationship with Bond throughout his life) explained.
More from this author
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
A landmark work of gay ethnography, an avant-garde fusion of folk and modernity, and a chance comment in a great interview
ANGUS REID applauds the inventive stagecraft with which the Lyceum serve up Stevenson’s classic, but misses the deeper themes
Similar stories
WILL PODMORE is intrigued by an analysis of capital that emphasises the deadening impact of financialisation on the US and UK economies
SIMON PARSONS salutes drama that registers how the impact of the sexual assault ripples out through every element of a family’s existence
GORDON PARSONS applauds a history of the US Federal Theatre Project, that brought political theatre to millions in the US
DENNIS BROE puts into broader context The Sympathiser, a novel HBO series which attempts to insert more objectivity into the depiction of the US during the Vietnam war, its aftermath and its lingering mythologies