MATTHEW HAWKINS applauds a psychotherapist’s disection of William Blake
Ambitious plays in need of directorial editing
(L to R) Jade Ogugua as Vi, Joe Barber as Laurie and Tim Treloar as Mick
[The Other Richard] 
New releases from Christina Alden and Alex Patterson, Odette Michell, Clementine Lovell
JOHN GREEN is fascinated by a very readable account of Britain’s involvement in South America
Strip cartoons used to be the bread and butter of newspapers and they have been around for centuries. MICHAL BONCZA asks our own Paul Tanner about which bees are in his bonnet
GORDON PARSONS acknowledges the authority with which Sarah Kane’s theatrical justification for suicide has resonance today
RON JACOBS welcomes a timely homage to one of the IWW and CPUSA’s most effective orators
O, Island
★★★
Ivy Tiller, Vicar’s Daughter, Squirrel Killer
★
The Other Place
Stratford-Upon-Avon
THE post-Covid re-emergence of the RSC’s Mischief Festival in its Stratford studio theatre, designed to introduce new writing, features a double bill of two ambitious short plays full of topical references, both in need of directorial editing.
O, Island by Nina Seagal is a dystopian parable set in a Home Counties village not a million miles from Ambridge, isolated by river floodwaters.
It moves from knock-about comedy, with the local Tory MP determined at all costs to snatch a publicity photograph of his heroic rescuing performance, being rejected by the villagers, who establish an independent islet state led by the articulate, grandmotherly Margaret.
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