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
Latest editorial
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
[Marc Brenner]
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
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.
Similar stories
MARY CONWAY applauds the timely revival of Miller’s study of people fatally deformed by the economics of survival
MARY CONWAY is spellbound by superb performances in Arthur Miller’s study of the social and personal stress brought about by Nazi Germany’s Kristallnacht
MARY CONWAY becomes impatient with the intellectual self-indulgence of Tom Stoppard in a production that is, nevertheless, total class
Although this production was in rehearsal before the playwright’s death, it allows us to pay homage to his life, suggests MARY CONWAY