MARIA DUARTE is swept along by the cocky self-belief of a ping-pong hustler in a surprisingly violent drama
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Marxism makes monumental Manchester mark
JOHN GREEN recommends a unique documentary on the timely return of Friedrich Engels to the city
BEFORE AND AFTER: Engels statue in Ukraine (inset) and its arrival in Manchester
STEVE ANDREW recommends a lively and often moving guide to once vibrant spaces that have been abandoned or swept away
GEOFF BOTTOMS appreciates the local touch brought to a production of Dickens’s perennial classic
MARY CONWAY is disappointed by a production whose design and cartoonish acting overwhelms the close scrutiny of characters
SUSAN DARLINGTON enjoys the raucous familiarity of a traditional topsy-turvy pantomime
RON JACOBS introduces the latest novel by the best writer of US working-class fiction writing today
IN 2017, Turner Prize-shortlisted artist Phil Collins displayed a statue of Friedrich Engels he’d brought from Ukraine to Manchester in a ceremony at the close of the city’s international festival.
Manchester is the city where Engels spent 20 years of his life and wrote his classic work The Condition of the Working Class in England, but which had no monument in the city centre to commemorate that fact.
Collins shot the whole project and his hour-long film Ceremony: the Return of Friedrich Engels not only documents the transportation of the statue but intercuts it with scenes from working-class life in present-day Manchester.
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