RICHARD MURGATROYD is intrigued by a study that asks why the ability to diagnose outstrips the ability to cure
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Utopia undone
Christopher Ian Smith's powerful documentary charts the rise and fall of the visionary project that was Basildon new town, says MARIA DUARTE
SYLVIA HIKINS recommends a sweeping survey of the world's biggest desert and the people who live there
MICHAL BONCZA highly recommends a revelatory exhibition of work by the doyen of indigenous Australians’ art, Emily Kam Kngwarray
The Bard commutes to work for the first time in 45 years
DAVID RENTON is puzzled by an ambitious attempt to look back on world culture from the future without engaging with or understanding it
GORDON PARSONS is riveted by a translation of Shakespeare’s tragedy into joyous comedy set in a southern black homestead
GEORGE FOGARTY relishes the music of black British artists that channels Carribbean, Latin and club sounds, along with contemporary west African radicalism
New Town Utopia (15)
Directed by Christopher Ian Smith
★★★
THIS visually arresting portrait of Basildon New Town and the hopes it spawned on becoming a beacon for a social and classless utopia make for a thought-provoking documentary.
Director Christopher Ian Smith shows you the Essex town as you have never seen it before through its bleak and striking architecture and its colourful and eye-catching sculptures and murals.
The words and works of local artists, musicians and poets are interwoven throughout and shed a fascinating light on life in this former new town, its slow demise and the demonising of its working-class inhabitants.
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