To rescue Kahlo from the clutches of the corporate art market, we need to acknowledge the overt and covert political dimensions of the work, demands GAVIN O’TOOLE
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A comic-strip version of history
A production full of empty symbols and bereft of the 'epic' structure that might do it justice doesn't impress ANGUS REID
OFF THE MARK Laura Evelyn and Bettrys Jones (as Ellen Wilkinson)
[Pamela Raith]
If you can see past the relentless commodification you will be rewarded by enormously powerful work, suggests JENNY MITCHELL
CHRIS SEARLE revels in the one-off collaboration between an American polymath and a British Muslim, and detects the presence of their revolutionary forebear
GORDON PARSONS revels in an ebullient production of Shakespeare’s magical comedy
BRENT CUTLER welcomes a thoughtful analysis of the Erdogan regime, viewed through the evolving history of a neighbourhood in Istanbul
GORDON PARSONS regrets the price, but is dazzled by an outstandingly ambitious study of the way art restoration in particular, and culture in general was weaponised by the Nazis
Red Ellen
Royal Lyceum Theatre
Edinburgh
YOU can only be grateful to learn about Ellen Wilkinson, the pioneering socialist MP who lead the Jarrow March in 1936 and, as minister of education under Attlee, introduced many school reforms in a short period, such as free milk and lunches, and raising the leaving age from 14 to 15.
But when you weigh her political life against the character on show in this Edinburgh/Nottingham/Northern Stage co-production, you are left pondering the choices made by writer Caroline Bird, and director Wils Wilson.
That Wilkinson was in fact a founder member of the Communist Party of Great Britain in 1921, and a successful novelist with two works of fiction on the shelf alongside her seven works of political history and theory, and a long-standing suffragist, feminist and organiser comes as a surprise.
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