EWAN CAMERON picks out two fascinating music shows, fusing the Korean, and the Celtic, with the modern
A Thousand Splendid Suns, The Rep, Birmingham/Touring
Khaled Hosseini’s evocative fiction is lost in translation to the stage
At the mercy of the plot: Sujaya Dasgupta, Pal Aron and Amina Zia
[Pamela Raith]
BENJAMIN POTHIER suggests that Palaeolithic cave paintings in Spain point to the ceremonial use of hallucinogenic flora
The bard confirms that the right has a humour bypass, and replays the English Revolution on period instruments
MARIA DUARTE and ANDY HEDGECOCK review Sunny Dancer, Tony, Songs of Forgotten Trees, and The End of Oak Street
JOHN GREEN relishes a powerful and moving drama that explores the lived realities of west London’s Punjabi community
MARTIN HALL welcomes a plea for greater compassion between believer and non-believer via the framework of philosophical enquiry
KHALED HOSSEINI’S 2007 bestselling novel is a powerful story that follows the fortunes of two indomitable Afghan women over three decades.
Forced together by circumstances, their increasingly dependent relationship, set against the harrowing disintegration of Kabul under Taliban rule, is suffused with the sense of daily Afghan life.
Unfortunately, this production sacrifices most of the texture and sensory elements of the novel for mere narrative. Traditional costumes, cursory dances, recorded Afghan music and patrolling Taliban militia are no replacement for how the book submerges the reader into another world.
Similar stories
Family issues and dragon-fuelled history amount to a vacuous spectacle that ill-fits the theatre, muses SIMON PARSONS
MICHAL BONCZA, FIONA O’CONNOR, JAMES WALSH and ANGUS REID review Atlas of Disappearance, Love Me Tender, Bouchra, and This Tempting Madness
SIMON PARSONS applauds the timely revival of a play about solidarity and betrayal within Britain’s Pakistani community
GORDON PARSONS is intrigued by a biography of the Marxist intellectual and author, made from the point of view of his son