MICHAL BONCZA recommends a minimalist installation that prompts intriguing connotations
Latest editorial
Death of England, National Theatre London
Rafe Spall brilliantly conveys the conflicted mindset of a white working-class ‘loser’
ENGLAND TILL I DIE: Rafe Spall as Michael
[Helen Murray]
FIONA O’CONNOR questions the achievement of this year’s Orwell prize winner for political fiction
LEO BOIX reviews two powerful Latin American novels in which myth and crime fiction expose the deadly consequences of patriarchy, clandestine abortion and state violence
New releases from Laura Veirs, The Waterboys, and Yard Act
Ron's rages are sincere and — according to his wife — healthily cathartic. But can these splenetic outbursts loosen the grip of capitalism at its most monstrous?
ANGUS REID considers the power of the podcast as a vehicle for consensus building in opposition to mainstream media narratives
IN THIS solo tour-de-force from actor Rafe Spall, Michael is an estuary lad on a rolling boil of nervous energy.
With clipped strut and barely comprehensible speech he makes his entrance on to a set which, akin to a cockpit, resembles the cross of St George. Red against white, it evokes a wound as well as a symbol of national pride.
You wouldn’t want to meet Michael if he was pissed or if Leyton Orient were losing — he’s volatile enough sober. But Michael is in crisis and the layers of his persona and raw intelligence are stripped back as he recalls his father’s death while watching England’s last World Cup effort.
Similar stories
PAUL FOLEY revels in the coolest, most joyful piece of theatre you’ll get this summer
JAN WOOLF ponders the works and contested reputation of the West German sculptor and provocateur, who believed that everybody is potentially an artist
MAYER WAKEFIELD is gripped by a production dives rapidly from champagne-quaffing slick to fraying motormouth
JAN WOOLF is beguiled by the tempting notion that Freud psychoanalysed Hitler in a comedy that explores the vulnerability of a damaged individual