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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Lessons learned with Pride
Writer STEPHEN BERESFORD and director MATTHEW WARCHUS give David Sharkey an insight into a film which celebrates the support given by lesbian and gay people to the miners during the strike of 1984-85
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
DURING the second wave of pit closures in the 1990s, a 21-year-old LGBT activist was having an argument about politics and it’s one I have had on many occasions.
That argument, about whether or not gay people of his age were as political as those older than him, rages in the community to this day. When it was suggested that he support the mining communities, his initial response was: “Why on earth would I support them when they don’t support me?” To which his comrade replied: “Let me tell you a story...”
That man was Stephen Beresford and that story was of the 1984-85 miners’ strike and the support given to it by lesbians and gays. And it’s a narrative which writer Beresford and director Matthew Warchus got together to immortalise in the film Pride, which is in cinemas from Friday.
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