DENNIS BROE observes how cutbacks, mergers and AI create content detached from both reality and history itself
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Theatre Review: Cyprus Avenue
DENNIS POOLE recommends a bleak black comedy on deranged sectarianism in Ireland
SAHAR MARANLOU explores a novella, newly translated and republished in English that tells the history of Iran through women’s bodies
DAVID NICHOLSON applauds the revival of a joyous production that deals with choirs, competitions and communism
New releases from Peruvian Ranil y Su Conjunto Tropical, Leve Leve: Sao Tome & Principe, and South African BCUC
MARY DAVIS welcomes a remarkable documentary about the general strike — politically spot on, and featuring accounts from the strikers themselves — that is available for screenings
MICHAL BONCZA and MARIA DUARTE review The Stranger, Undertone, and Outcome
Cyprus Avenue
Royal Court Theatre, London
LIVING in Cyprus Avenue, East Belfast, Eric regards himself as British. Protestant to the core, he enthusiastically joins in the Orange marches every August. What he is not is Irish or anti-Catholic or anti-racist.
But, a loyal son of Ulster, he is determinedly anti-fenian. And, in David Ireland’s play, he is psychologically off his trolley.
Introduced to his newly born granddaughter, he convinces himself that his family has been infiltrated by the forces of darkness — his granddaughter is indeed none less than the devil incarnate Gerry Adams himself.
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ANGUS REID squirms at the spectacle of a bitter millennial on work experience in a gay sauna
Why not pay a visit to Feile an Phobail, a people’s festival of community arts with roots in the days of internment without trial, and where the spirit of solidarity remains undimmed, says LYNDA WALKER
WILL STONE foresees the refashioning of Beckett’s study of bitter nostalgia given the plethora of self-recording we make in the digital age