CATHERINE STEEL relishes a compelling novel about Augustus’s right hand man, but misses the politics, the cultural shifts, and more detail about his restoration of Rome
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Betties break boundaries
KATHERINE M GRAHAM is inspired by a show about women shattering gender conventions
Empowering: Lucy McCormick
[Jack Sain]
TONY BURKE speaks to JOEL McIVER, co-author of the biography of bluesman John Mayall
A misfit couple unhappily ever after, a dead man walking, dodgy journos, and trench art trucking
New releases from Javon Jackson, IZE Trio, and Mal Waldron Trio
PAUL DONOVAN applauds an intriguing multi-layered depiction, dominated by a stunning impersonation of Marilyn herself
EWAN CAMERON marvels at the impossible ambition, realised with dreamlike finesse of translating Italo Calvino to the stage
Collective Rage: A Play in Five Betties
Southwark Playhouse
ABSURDIST, funny, affecting and intelligent, Collective Rage is a wonderfully inventive piece of theatre.
US playwright Jen Silverman’s script, tightly directed here by Charlie Parham, interrogates the social rules that shape women and the actions it might take to break them via five personas named Betty.
They're a pleasingly mixed bunch. One is watching the news and learning to fight, another is lonely but willing to explore while a third is is going to leave her job at a cosmetics outlet and become the voice of her generation.
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