STEVE ANDREW enjoys an account of the many communities that flourished independently of and in resistance to the empires of old
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Digging out the truth
LAWRENCE REVISITED: (L toR) Thomas Edward Lawrence in 1919 and Peter O'Toole as Lawrence in David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia
[(L to R) Public domain and IMDb]
TOM STONE urges you to catch the last dates of a New York singer/songwriter, never afraid to challenge her audiences musically or politically
JAN WOOLF examines work that aims to give viewers a material experience of the environments in the polar north and Britain equally affected by the climate crisis
The bard recalls advice received 50 years ago from his TRB muse, and sorts out appropriate legislation for football club ownership
MICHAL BONCZA and MARIA DUARTE review Facing War, Kontinental ’25, Bugonia, and Relay
MAYER WAKEFIELD is frustrated by a production of Ibsen’s classic study of an anti-heroine that fails to elucidate her motivations
PETER MASON tunes his ear into the domestic affairs of a Carribbean couple with a troublesome son
I’VE been preparing this play now for the last nine years. Started on an archaeological dig in Jordan in 2013, where I was writer in residence with GARP (Great Arab Revolt Project) co-directed by Neil Faulkner, the play speaks to our time.
Archaeology has its genres too, and this dig, Modern Conflict Archaeology, examined the united tribal Bedouin revolt against the Turks, allied with Germany in WWI, through the complex character of TE Lawrence, mythologised as Lawrence of Arabia.
I had a teenage fascination with Lawrence after seeing the David Lean movie in the 1960s, and Peter O’Toole’s lovely blue eyes soon gave way to reading the real Lawrence and realising what an astounding writer he was.
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