STEVE JOHNSON speaks to DJ and singer/songwriter Mark Radcliffe
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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
[Idil Sukan] 
JAMES WALSH takes advantage of an evening of comedy snippets to pick out which clowns will make it in Edinburgh
MAYER WAKEFIELD is swept up by the tale of the south London venue where music forged alliances across race, class and identity
MAYER WAKEFIELD applauds Rosamund Pike’s punchy and tragic portrayal of a multi-tasking mother and high court judge
FIONA O CONNOR recommends an unflinching depiction of child sexual abuse and its aftershocks, set in a working-class Liverpool family
New releases from Paul Weller, Wet Leg, and Dino Saluzzi
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.
More from this author
Caroline Darian, daughter of Gisele Pelicot, took part in a conversation with Afua Hirsch at London’s Royal Geographical Society. LYNNE WALSH reports
This year’s Bristol Radical History Festival focused on the persistent threats of racism, xenophobia and, of course, our radical collective resistance to it across Ireland and Britain, reports LYNNE WALSH
LYNNE WALSH previews the Bristol Radical History Conference this weekend
With most of recorded history dominated by the voices of men, LYNNE WALSH encourages sisters to read the memoirs of women – and to write their own too
