WILL STONE fact-checks the colourful life of Ozzy Osbourne
A sharply written and beautifully performed piece of drama
SIMON PARSONS recommends an innovatory production that addresses the tragedies of Northern Ireland’s recent history
EXCELLENT: (L to R) Cormac Elliott, Kate Reid, Rachael Rooney and Aoife Kennan
[Mark Douet] 
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
The 4th Country
Park Theatre
THE group behind this little gem of a production, Plain Heroines, are a female-led company whose mission statement is to make funny plays about difficult subjects and this production does exactly that.
Set in Northern Ireland, the play explores how the tragedies of their recent history, still haunting the present, can be dramatised honestly and effectively and specifically how a play can do justice to the Bloody Sunday victims and their relatives and those who suffered under Northern Ireland’s rigidly cruel abortion laws.
The writer and actress Kate Reid has structured the piece around four interconnected lives and the actors who are trying to play those parts. Stylistically, she uses a light touch and metatheatre to spotlight historic grievances. Out-of-role discussions on alternate structures and approaches to the drama punctuate a largely naturalistic narrative of a family struggling to escape the shadows of the past.
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