WILL STONE fact-checks the colourful life of Ozzy Osbourne
Around the World in 80 Days, Leeds Playhouse/Touring
Inventive adaptation of Jules Verne’s globetrotting classic sets a relentless pace
Nimble: Darren Kuppan (left) as Fix of the Yard
[David Lindsay] 
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
SOME books take on a life of their own that’s bigger than the author ever imagined and that’s true of Jules Verne’s Around the World in 80 Days, a fast-moving adventure now synonymous with the image of a hot-air balloon.
Yet such a mode of transport is never employed in the original 1873 novel and that misconception is a running gag in Toby Hulse’s irreverent adaptation in its frequent referencing to travelling by balloon as we follow the exploits of Phileas Fogg and his manservant Passepartout.
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