MAYER WAKEFIELD has reservations about the direction of a play centered on a DVLA re-training session for three British-Pakistani motorists
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Jude the abused
Mary Conway is put through the mill and ultimately enlightened by an unrelenting portrayal of a cruel all-male world
theatre review
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
MARY CONWAY is disappointed by a production that panders – if inadvertently – to Western prejudice against China
JOHN GREEN is fascinated by a history that excavates the enormous role played by agricultural workers in recent times
ALEX HALL recommends a book that places empirical evidence at the heart of understanding racism
A Little Life
Harold Pinter Theatre
If your stomach turns at gruelling acts of paedophilia, man-on-boy rape and the gushing blood of self-harm, this play is not for you.
On the other hand, if you value a brutally graphic, visceral, relentless journey into the dark centre of one man’s soul, you’ll stay and tough it out. It’s an epic tale of almost allegorical significance which rises far above what might initially seem like a catalogue of gratuitous misery.
And James Norton of Happy Valley inhabits Jude, the lead, with a self-effacing and tender display that converts before our eyes to one of sacrificial splendour.
More from this author
MARY CONWAY is disappointed by a production that panders – if inadvertently – to Western prejudice against China
MARY CONWAY recommends a beautifully judged performance that shines a light on the experience of all female war babies and boomers
A nervous year, showing that the theatre, like the world, stands on a precipice and seems uncertain where to jump
MARY CONWAY applauds a worthy revival of the US 1939 classic drama that studies the dehumanising consequences of affluence
