MARIA DUARTE recommends the true story of the remarkable woman who sued Donald Trump for sexual assault not once, but twice
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Best of 2020: Arts
KENNY MacASKILL is disappointed by a polemical, rather than factual, account of the Lone Star State and its political path since the civil war
PAUL DONOVAN is fascinated by the lives of Charles and Mary Bagot, and the insight this biography shines on the morals of pre-Victorian society
GORDON PARSONS appreciates fine performances and a feel for ambiguity, but misses the music of the dialogue
DOUGLAS FIELD relishes the hard-boiled language, satire and humour of the third and last of the Harlem trilogy
STEPHANIE BROWN draws attention to the hidden labour of the female embroiderers, and how a 19th century replica made no such error
MIK SABIERS revels in a band that ploughs an idiosyncratic furrow of expletive laden, guitar-driven alt rock
IN A year of limited opportunity for theatre visits due to Covid, my highlight was A Taste of Honey at the Trafalgar Studios in London, which I managed to catch ahead of the first lockdown.
In the National Theatre staging of Shelagh Delaney’s best-known play, Hildegard Bechtler’s set brilliantly captured the sad and shabbily claustrophobic post-war Salford flat in which mother Helen (Jodie Prenger) and daughter Jo (Gemma Dobson) go into battle. It was possible almost to smell the dirty old town outside, with its noxious gasworks, slaughterhouse and canal.
The cast were uniformly excellent, delivering Delaney’s caustic dialogue with a tangible appreciation for its cadences and nuances.
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ANGUS REID, ANDY HEDGECOCK and MARIA DUARTE review On The Sea, A Useful Ghost, Brunello: The Gracious Visionary, and Pinocchio Unstrung
GORDON PARSONS appreciates fine performances and a feel for ambiguity, but misses the music of the dialogue
PAUL FOLEY revels in the coolest, most joyful piece of theatre you’ll get this summer
MAYER WAKEFIELD recommends a musical ‘love letter’ to black power activists of the 1970s