ANGUS REID urges us to understand the persecution of Jason Arday from a political and historical perspective, and to see the victim in human terms
Unique wedding woes
TOM KING sees a bitter-sweet musical, the first ever about a gay marriage
Passionate partners: Tyrone Huntley (left) and Billy Cullum in Leave to Remain
[Helen Maybanks]
Re-releases of the classics Gypsy Rhumba and Buena Vista Social Club, and a stunning album by Palestinian artist Faris Ishaq
Nothing, says ANDY HEDGECOCK, can rescue this undistinguished amalgam of ponderous melodrama and shallow philosophical speculation
JAMIE BRITTON invites readers to visit 3,500 locals as part of a marathon artistic pub crawl
JOHN GREEN welcomes a valuable and incisive analysis of a world become hyperpolitical but without the mass movement institutions to represent it
Leave to Remain
Lyric Theatre Hammersmith
AS A musical, Leave to Remain treads familiar ground.
The young Alex and Obi meet and fall in love before their respective pasts catch up with them, throwing their future together into doubt. But the fact that they’re both gay gives what would otherwise be a fairly hackneyed story some interesting new dimensions in Matt Jones and Kele Okereke's work.
The plot thickens when Alex (Billy Cullum), a US citizen whose visa is dependent on his work, announces he must leave Britain and follow his company to the UAE, effectively calling time on the couple's new and thrilling romance. The only way Alex can stay and be granted “leave to remain” is for he and Obi (Tyrone Huntley) to marry.
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