MAYER WAKEFIELD has reservations about the direction of a play centered on a DVLA re-training session for three British-Pakistani motorists
Really choice
PAUL FOLEY sees an excellent new version of a classic Harold Brighouse comedy
PIC CAP: Sympathetic curmudgeon Tony Jayawardena (right) as Hari Hobson Pic: Marc Brenner
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
Hobson’s Choice
Royal Exchange, Manchester
THIS production of Hobson’s Choice is like no other — and it’s an absolute cracker.
Much of this is down to Tanika Gupta’s clever, slick and very funny adaptation which sets the play in 1988 and relocates the action a couple of miles across the River Irwell to Manchester’s Northern Quarter.
In it, refugee from Idi Amin’s Uganda Hari Hobson has built up a successful tailoring business in Manchester. Despite his high standing in the city’s Asian community, the real brains behind the business is his daughter Durga.
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