WILL STONE fact-checks the colourful life of Ozzy Osbourne
Amelie: The Musical, Alhambra Theatre, Bradford
Inventive staging of a contemporary film classic
Gamine: Audrey Brisson as Amelie
[Pamela Raith] 
JAMES CROSSLEY applauds a lucid biography of the German radical preacher who reemerged as a hero in the GDR
Prizes all round: the Bard hands plaudits to the Miners Gala, OT&JC, Joe Solo, Black Sabbath’s frontman and the Lionesses
Star cartoonist JAMIE BRITTON is in awe of a graphic novel of epic proportions that explores class, religion and globalisation via the strange cultivation of Ginseng in the US Midwest
GUILLERMO THOMAS is intrigued by a history of the Middle East that demonstrates how promising post colonial beginnings were snuffed out by Western imperialist interests
MARIA DUARTE recommends the intricate study of a high-performance and highly dysfuntional German family
THE 2001 film Amelie has so many iconic scenes that it takes a brave person to adapt it for the stage.
Craig Lucas partly circumvents direct comparison in this musical version which, while maintaining the original’s surreal whimsicality, simultaneously makes it more physically grounded.
The basic story is untouched. Amelie, a lonely girl raised by a neurotic mother and iceberg father, spreads happiness in the lives of other people while ignoring her own needs. That changes when she meets the gently eccentric Nino and is forced to confront her own dream world.
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