MARIA DUARTE is swept along by the cocky self-belief of a ping-pong hustler in a surprisingly violent drama
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She’s My Witch by Stewart Home
Deviance devotees make for an endearing odd couple
(RELATIVELY) RESTRAINED: Stewart Home
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
STEWART HOME’S first novel in six years sets off on a familiar road as its protagonists — Martin Cooper, a fifty-something ex-anti-fascist skinhead and his girlfriend Maria Remedios, a drugged-up Spanish head-case in her forties — flit around trendy parts of inner north London exploring their interests in punk, the occult, horror and deviant sex.
But compared with any normal outing on the filthy, belching Home charabanc, this is a restrained ride — one that’s unlikely to induce too much queasiness and which offers rewards at its destination.
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