Back from a mini tour of Yorkshire and Stockport and cheering for supporting act Indignation Meeting
The Political History of Smack and Crack, Bristol Old Vic/Touring
Telling reportage on the 1980s drugs havoc in inner-city Britain
DYSFUNCTIONAL: Eve Steele and William Fox as Mandy and Neil Pic: The Other Richard
ALISTAR FINDLAY is mesmerised by this multiple ‘Visions of Scotland’ assault on the audience’s eyes and senses
The Star's critics ANGUS REID, ANDY HEDGECOCK and MICHAL BONCZA reviews I Am Love, The Penguin Lessons, Freaky Tales, The Thicket
MAYER WAKEFIELD has reservations about the direction of a play centered on a DVLA re-training session for three British-Pakistani motorists
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
INSIGHTFUL and stirring, this award-winning 70-minute exposé of the rise in drug abuse at the time of the 1981 inner-city riots is another exciting production at Bristol Old Vic’s Studio space.
Eve Steele and William Fox play Mandy and Neil, both from dysfunctional Mancunian families, who live through the riots in Moss Side repeated that year in many English cities suffering from social deprivation.
According to writer Ed Edwards, before 1981 there were only 3,000 known drug addicts in England, invariably middle-class users, and heroin was largely unknown on the streets. But four years later, 333,000 mainly working-class addicts were registered as heroin freely flowed through the inner cities.
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SIMON PARSONS applauds a tense and thoughtful production that regularly challenges our political engagement and prejudices
SIMON PARSONS questions whether a dark take on Shakespeare’s Seasonal comedy is in harmony with the original text
