WILL STONE fact-checks the colourful life of Ozzy Osbourne
To be Irish or not to be Irish
SIMON PARSONS recommends an engrossing, Belfast-based, inter-generational two-hander
BEAUTIFULLY CRAFTED: Stephen Kennedy as Ray and Matthew Blaney as Matthew
[Lidia Crisafulli] 
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
Not Now
Finborough Theatre
FROM the outset, where a young man finishes breakfast with an erratic, overdramatic soliloquy from Richard III, you know you are in for something special.
David Ireland’s small gem of a play is set in Belfast and deals with 50 minutes in the lives of Matthew, fresh from his father’s funeral and about to fly to London for an audition at RADA and his painter-decorator uncle, Ray.
The beautifully crafted relationship with Ray offering half remembered, cliched and unwanted advice to his nephew on how to act, culled from gossip, films and DVD box covers is typical, amusing Irish banter yet develops to explore far more profound truths when the conversation on performance slides into identity.
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SIMON PARSONS applauds an imaginative and absorbing updating of Strindberg’s classic
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