MICK MCSHANE is roused by a band whose socialism laces every line of every song with commitment and raw passion
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Fragile Glass
Tennessee Williams’s play is a reminder of the precarious existence of many in the US of the inter-war years, says LYNNE WALSH
Sparkling: Lesley Ewen as Amanda with Michael Abubakar as Tom
New releases from Mountain, Soul Asylum and Michael McDermott
ALEX HALL is disgusted by the misuse of ‘emotional narratives’ to justify uninformed geo-political prejudice
SUE TURNER welcomes a thoughtful, engaging book that lays bare the economic realities of global waste management
JOHN GREEN welcomes an insider account of the achievements and failures of the transition to democracy in Portugal
SIMON PARSONS applauds an imaginative and absorbing updating of Strindberg’s classic
PETER MASON is enthralled by an assembly of objects, ancient and modern, that have lain in the mud of London’s river
The Glass Menagerie
Arcola Theatre, London
ALL coquettish wiles and smiling scheming, Lesley Ewen commands the stage as Amanda Wingfield in this tricky old Tennessee Williams classic. It’s a huge performance at the play’s epicentre.
Her desire to raise her children beyond their abilities or ambition in the austerity-stricken St Louis of 1937 creates unbearable tension and the resultant matriarchal bullying, played at this pitch, can exhaust an audience.
Her every feature is florid, her dialogue a torrent of words. Even the Magic Flute’s Queen of the Night seemed to pause and breathe more often.
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Anti-fascists from around the world will soon be travelling to Spain to commemorate the International Brigades and walk in the footsteps of the bravest of their generation, writes LYNNE WALSH
