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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Going nowhere fast
MICHAEL STEWART is left perplexed by an odd rag-bag of a play
(L to R) Patrick Walshe Mcbride as Hugo, Eva Pope as Val, Vincent Franklin as Sir Neil Marriot, Grace Hogg-Robinson as Sarah and, taking pictures, Megan Mcdonnell as Wynona
[Manuel Harlan]
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
The Snail House
Hampstead Theatre
THE title The Snail House, we are informed, comes from a Nigerian saying; “Even a snail will eventually reach its home.” What this means I’ve no idea as I thought it carries its home on its back.
Author Richard Eyre has written his first play at age 79 after a lifetime of directing for the stage and screen other writers’ works. Moreover, as the scourge of Covid was turning most of us into stir-crazy psychotics he was inspired by the pandemic to pen this state of the nation oeuvre.
Sir Neil Marriot (Vincent Franklin), a respected paediatrician who has risen to fame during the plague, is holding a celebratory birthday dinner at his son’s old school.
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MARY CONWAY applauds the timely revival of Miller’s study of people fatally deformed by the economics of survival
MARY CONWAY becomes impatient with the intellectual self-indulgence of Tom Stoppard in a production that is, nevertheless, total class
MAYER WAKEFIELD has reservations about a two-handed theatrical homage to jazz’s most mercurial musician
Although this production was in rehearsal before the playwright’s death, it allows us to pay homage to his life, suggests MARY CONWAY