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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Kes adaptation never quite takes wing
Unchanging: Lucas Button in Kes
[Anthony Robling]
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
Kes
Leeds Playhouse
A VICTIM of social circumstance and impoverished education, Billy Casper remains an anti-hero for young people from deprived backgrounds.
Robert Alan Evans’s adaptation of Billy Hines’s 1968 working-class novel seeks to distance itself from Ken Loach’s iconic film by presenting a tightly wound, impressionistic play.
Staged with just two actors, Lucas Button’s 15-year-old Billy is joined on one life-changing day by his older self. Jack Lord plays this version and all the other adult characters, from his own single mother through to the sadistic PE teacher Mr Gryce — who describes himself as being “born wi’a tracksuit on!”
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GORDON PARSONS is blown away by a superb production of Rostand’s comedy of verbal panache and swordmanship
ANDY HEDGECOCK and MARIA DUARTE review The Ceremony, Eddington, The Life of Chuck, and The Thursday Murder Club
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