MICHAL BONCZA and MARIA DUARTE review Facing War, Kontinental ’25, Bugonia, and Relay
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Ramsay sycophancy
PAUL DONOVAN observes how the first Labour parliamentarians were merely malleable pillars of the establishment
[The National Archives (United Kingdom)/Public domain]
MAYER WAKEFIELD is frustrated by a production of Ibsen’s classic study of an anti-heroine that fails to elucidate her motivations
PETER MASON tunes his ear into the domestic affairs of a Carribbean couple with a troublesome son
Evidence points to a Scottish provenance for the extraordinary Irish illuminated manuscript, the Book of Kells, suggests RACHEL MOSS
CHRIS SEARLE relishes an account of the years when a black American music carried a message of anti-racism and class struggle
This stunning film about a Bulgarian textile worker highlights the exploitative nature of Euro-capitalism, says RITA DI SANTO
PETER MASON thrills to Irish folk band The Haar
The Wild Men
David Torrance
Bloomsbury, £20
THE main achievement of the first Labour government of 1924 proved to be demonstrating that they were not “wild men” at all.
The Establishment clearly saw the mixture of working-class representatives, elected in 1923, as a potential revolutionary threat to its existence. The British version of the Bolsheviks in Russia. What David Torrance clearly demonstrates is that they were anything but.
There were the initial niceties of dress, certain suits for different occasions. The prime minister had personally to fund the furnishing of Downing Street. The lack of trust of the first Labour administration is amusingly illustrated with the story of four splendid silver candlesticks, which reappeared in the Colonial Office, as Labour minister Jimmy Thomas left.
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