SUSAN DARLINGTON applauds a one-man show that navigates racist barriers to tell the story of the black pilot, boxer and jazz musician
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MATTHEW HAWKINS sees past the purple prose to themes of rejection and ageing in the autobiographical fiction of Rupert Everett
JOHN GREEN recommends that rare thing, a British novelist who is politically aware, entertaining and who writes to the moment
RITA DI SANTO picks the best films from a festival that adopted a ‘neutral’ political position, despite the looming presence of the AfD
New releases from Richard Dawson, Yazz Ahmed, and The Murder Capital
JON BALDWIN introduces a new translation of Karl Marx’s masterwork that is readable, relatable and refreshed
GORDON PARSONS is bowled over by a skilfully stripped down and powerfully relevant production of Hamlet
In which we accompany the Bard into Cymru to meet his musical accomplices, young and old
The American No
Rupert Everett, Abacus, £20
Somewhat mantra-like, the words favourite writer, gifted storyteller, literary star, writer, gifted writer, writer to his (aching) bones, sequentially appear on the jacket of The American No, a short-story collection penned by Rupert Everett.
Such peppering served to pique my awareness of clunkers like “one Sunday morning we found ourselves in the Kit Kat club as usual” and “she ran out into the bazaar, into the orange glare” and (on the loading of a hearse) “the bouncers secured the coffin to the brass rails and fastened the flowers on top before climbing in.”
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