WILL STONE fact-checks the colourful life of Ozzy Osbourne
The Political History of Smack and Crack, Bristol Old Vic/Touring
Telling reportage on the 1980s drugs havoc in inner-city Britain
DYSFUNCTIONAL: Eve Steele and William Fox as Mandy and Neil
[The Other Richard] 
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
INSIGHTFUL and stirring, this award-winning 70-minute exposé of the rise in drug abuse at the time of the 1981 inner-city riots is another exciting production at Bristol Old Vic’s Studio space.
Eve Steele and William Fox play Mandy and Neil, both from dysfunctional Mancunian families, who live through the riots in Moss Side repeated that year in many English cities suffering from social deprivation.
According to writer Ed Edwards, before 1981 there were only 3,000 known drug addicts in England, invariably middle-class users, and heroin was largely unknown on the streets. But four years later, 333,000 mainly working-class addicts were registered as heroin freely flowed through the inner cities.
More from this author
SIMON PARSONS is taken by a thought provoking and intelligent play performed with great sensitivity
SIMON PARSONS is gripped by a psychological thriller that questions the the power of the state over vulnerable individuals
SIMON PARSONS applauds an imaginative and absorbing updating of Strindberg’s classic
SIMON PARSONS is discomfited by an unflichingly negative portrait of motherhood and its trials
