KEN COCKBURN assesses the art of Ian Hamilton Finlay for the experience of warfare it incited and represents
Threads unravel in ill-woven Irish tapestry
I Am Of Ireland
The bard gives us advance notice of his upcoming medieval K-pop releases
GORDON PARSONS steps warily through the pessimistic world view of an influential US conservative
HENRY BELL takes issue with the assertion that basic income is a remedy for poverty when it doesn’t address the inbuilt inequality of capitalism
RON JACOBS welcomes an investigation of the murders of US leftist activists that tells the story of a solidarity movement in Chile
RITA DI SANTO surveys the smorgasbord of films on offer at this year’s festival
Reviews of A New Kind Of Wilderness, The Marching Band, Good One and Magic Farm by MARIA DUARTE, ANDY HEDGECOCK and MICHAL BONCZA
I Am of Ireland
Old Red Lion Theatre
London
THERE is promise in the first five minutes of this new play from Seamus Finnegan. All seven of the cast appear as a troupe of Irish stereotypes, from the balaclava’d IRA man to the Orangeman in the sash his father wore. There’s a priest of course and, bafflingly, a drag queen who's never seen again.
It’s an early sign that there are going to be loose ends, but the problem with having multiple storylines is that there needs to be cohesion somewhere along the way.
The themes explored are familiar — the future of the Catholic church, which seems to have damned itself, the self-destructive bigotry of loyalists looking for new enemies to destroy, the forced exile of so many and the notion that the path to peace can be a disappointment to those who have put faith in the bullet and the bomb.
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This year’s Bristol Radical History Festival focused on the persistent threats of racism, xenophobia and, of course, our radical collective resistance to it across Ireland and Britain, reports LYNNE WALSH
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With most of recorded history dominated by the voices of men, LYNNE WALSH encourages sisters to read the memoirs of women – and to write their own too
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