Reviews of A New Kind Of Wilderness, The Marching Band, Good One and Magic Farm by MARIA DUARTE, ANDY HEDGECOCK and MICHAL BONCZA
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Innocents in Mostar
A promising debut that leaves glittering memories but has ducked the politics of the Croat-Bosniak conflict simmering at the time, writes MARY CONWAY
INNOCENTS? Saffron Coomber as Mina and Dino Kelly as Mili
SCOTT ALSWORTH foresees the coming of the smaller, leaner, and class conscious indie studio, with art as its guiding star
MARJORIE MAYO recommends an accessible and unsettling novel that uses a true incident of death in the Channel to raise questions of wider moral responsibility
MIK SABIERS wallows in a night of political punk and funk that fires both barrels at Trump
Reasonable radicalism, death in Abu Dhabi, locked-room romance, and sleuthing in the Blitz
SIMON DUFF recommends a new album from renowned composer and oud player Anour Brahem.
JAMES WALSH has a great night in the company of basketball players, quantum physicists and the exquisite timing of Rosie Jones
Old Bridge
Bush Theatre
FOR a play set in Mostar in 1988 and 1992, Old Bridge has surprisingly little to say about the complex allegiances and cataclysmic politics that brought mayhem to this Balkan city at a precise point in the 20th century.
Instead, it is a very personal story of four young people who begin the play as ardent quasi-teenagers (two are 18; two 20) and end it with lives blown apart by terrifying military action that they don’t understand, even less support.
Igor Memic tore this play, which premieres at the Bush Theatre as winner of the 2020 Papatango New Writing prize, from his very guts.
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