MAYER WAKEFIELD has reservations about the direction of a play centered on a DVLA re-training session for three British-Pakistani motorists
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Tasty new strain of rock-hard Bean
https://youtu.be/i45SJYORE-s
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
Sunflower Bean
The Wardrobe, Leeds/Touring
“LET’S make some loud music!” hollers Julia Cumming, the first of many such exhortations from Sunflower Bean’s bassist and lead vocalist, whose volume-control button seems to have malfunctioned.
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The swaggering beast into which they’ve transformed reflects their passage into adulthood — their 2016 debut was released when they were still in their late teens — but also how to work the stage. Reviews of second album Twentytwo in Blue have regularly cited Rumours-era Fleetwood Mac but, with the exception of that yearning number, the reference point here is Peter Green’s harder 1970s rock iteration of the band.
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