WILL STONE fact-checks the colourful life of Ozzy Osbourne
Less talk, more action
An explicit take on sexual power games could do with less reliance on arid discourse and more engagement in meaningful drama, says MARY CONWAY
Magnificent: Cate Blanchett (left)
[Stephen Cummiskey] 
JAMES CROSSLEY applauds a lucid biography of the German radical preacher who reemerged as a hero in the GDR
Prizes all round: the Bard hands plaudits to the Miners Gala, OT&JC, Joe Solo, Black Sabbath’s frontman and the Lionesses
Star cartoonist JAMIE BRITTON is in awe of a graphic novel of epic proportions that explores class, religion and globalisation via the strange cultivation of Ginseng in the US Midwest
GUILLERMO THOMAS is intrigued by a history of the Middle East that demonstrates how promising post colonial beginnings were snuffed out by Western imperialist interests
MARIA DUARTE recommends the intricate study of a high-performance and highly dysfuntional German family
When We Have Sufficiently Tortured Each Other
National Theatre, London
“EXTREME sex and violence” warns the hype for this new play by Martin Crimp at the National and there’s even a notice on the door about its “shockable” nature as you go in.
So you enter braced for pornography, albeit with a lead performance by none other than the great Cate Blanchett.
And she is magnificent. While displaying all the “infinite variety” of a modern Cleopatra, she holds the attention endlessly, with her face, voice, body and essential substance totally at her command. Sometimes a soft yielding girl, at others she’s the dominant male.
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MARY CONWAY applauds the success of Beth Steel’s bitter-sweet state-of-the-nation play
MARY CONWAY is blown away by a flawless production of Lynn Nottage’s exquisite tragedy
MARY CONWAY revels in the Irish American language and dense melancholy of O’Neill’s last and little-known play
MARY CONWAY recommends a play that some will find more discursive than eventful but one in which the characters glow
