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Albion, Almeida Theatre London
State of the nation takes root in an English country garden
EXCELLENT: Victoria Hamilton as Audrey in Albion
[Marc Brenner]
RON JACOBS welcomes a timely history of the Anti Imperialist league of America, and the role that culture played in their politics
STEVE ANDREW appreciates a passionate account of the Scottish Club during the ‘lost decade’
By telling the story of a lawless frontier town from the point of view of the Lakota, Chinese labourers, prostitutes and displaced prospectors, makes for a potted history of capital, suggests ALEX HALL
TONY BURKE speaks to Gambian kora player SUNTOU SUSSO
MARIA DUARTE recommends a British boxing biopic about the stormy relationship between Nazeem Hamed and his trainer Brendan Ingle
THIS fine play from Mike Bartlett is wonderful theatre.
As the audience settles around the protruding set of a country garden, a first world war soldier wanders around the lawn and, picking up the soil of his country, inhales it like dope — a metaphor for what’s to come.
Enter 21st-century Audrey (Victoria Hamilton) who has left her business life in London to return and live in the place which has nostalgic connections with her childhood — its seductive comforts and reluctance for change — despite her constantly professing its importance.
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MARY CONWAY revels in the Irish American language and dense melancholy of O’Neill’s last and little-known play
This is poetry in paint, spectacular but never spectacle for its own sake, writes JAN WOOLF