CHRIS SEARLE welcomes a startling vision of contemporary Newport from a veteran photographer of the British working class
To begin at the beginning:
‘My problem is that when people say the word 'Please' I find it difficult to resist. Just like when I'm in Tesco and pushing that trolley and I'm looking at the butter — Flora or Utterly Butterly — and I'm blocking the way. They say 'Please can you move' and I move.’ – Michael Adebolajo
the school bred up bit-players
see their faces bathed in hydroponic glow – children of the silence
within the South Circular
imagine sparrows peeping cautious murder the nocturnal charm
of blue-black hydrangea and the sudden inexplicable scream
the people who are and who are not like you
ever the vanity of small differences and knee-socks and religious school –
lower than Letwin or Platell as unable to identify a Hawksmoor but not all bad
no not by nature – they hate but no more than we all do
disaffection
is an interesting word, implying loveless and wraps
of speed and the babies born in Lewisham Hospital have it
like a birthmark or psychosis resulting from years of skunk abuse
twenty-two years old and the product of south east London’s
loving lower middle class
In verse and polemic, the bard points out that he is a poet and musician, not a political party
The Bard does Bearded Theory, and lodges a complaint about bandnames
LEO BOIX, ANGUS REID and MARIA DUARTE review Night Stage, Two Women, Kim Novak’s Vertigo, and Fuze
Although this production was in rehearsal before the playwright’s death, it allows us to pay homage to his life, suggests MARY CONWAY


