MAYER WAKEFIELD has reservations about the direction of a play centered on a DVLA re-training session for three British-Pakistani motorists
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King queen
GORDON PARSONS admires a version of Marlowe’s grim tragedy that strips it down to its gay essentials
Edward 2
New releases from Steve Knightley, Jupiter & Okwess, Jason Palmer, Lisa Knapp and Gerry Driver, Kin'Gongolo Kiniata, Ingrid Laubrock/Tom Rainey, Dan Sealey, Simin Tande, PAZ
JOHN GREEN relishes photography that unfolds a longstanding and poetic relationship with Leeds
A uncomfortably misogynistic authorial voice that sometimes seems to lack insight troubles FIONA O’CONNOR
MARY CONWAY is disappointed by a production that panders – if inadvertently – to Western prejudice against China
JOHN GREEN is fascinated by a history that excavates the enormous role played by agricultural workers in recent times
ALEX HALL recommends a book that places empirical evidence at the heart of understanding racism
Edward II
The Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon
CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE’S grim tragedy is, understandably perhaps, the least often featured of his plays on the modern stage. With our contemporary fixation with LBGT+ concerns, it is not surprising that the RSCS artistic directors should have decided that the time is ripe for an airing.
Daniel Evans, one of those directors, stars in Daniel Raggett’s new pared-down production.
It can be no spoiler for most people who will see this play to recognise that its focal point is necessarily the final horrific rape and murder of a weak and ineffectual king whose obsession with sexual “frolicking with his minion” at the expense of his country’s good brings about his downfall.
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While the group known as the Colourists certainly reinvigorated Scottish painting, a new show is a welcome chance to reassess them, writes ANGUS REID
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The phrase “cruel to be kind” comes from Hamlet, but Shakespeare’s Prince didn’t go in for kidnap, explosive punches, and cigarette deprivation. Tam is different.
ANGUS REID deconstructs a popular contemporary novel aimed at a ‘queer’ young adult readership
