MICK MCSHANE is roused by a band whose socialism laces every line of every song with commitment and raw passion
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‘A story not of romance but of brutality, cruelty and revenge’
JAN WOOLF recommends a play which is a marvel of ensemble playing, where actors and on-stage musicians are in high-energy harmony
TERRIFIC ACTING: Sam Archer as Edgar Linton, Ash Hunter as Heathcliff and Lucy McCormick as Cathy
New releases from Mountain, Soul Asylum and Michael McDermott
ALEX HALL is disgusted by the misuse of ‘emotional narratives’ to justify uninformed geo-political prejudice
SUE TURNER welcomes a thoughtful, engaging book that lays bare the economic realities of global waste management
JOHN GREEN welcomes an insider account of the achievements and failures of the transition to democracy in Portugal
SIMON PARSONS applauds an imaginative and absorbing updating of Strindberg’s classic
PETER MASON is enthralled by an assembly of objects, ancient and modern, that have lain in the mud of London’s river
Wuthering Heights
National Theatre
CHARLOTTE BRONTE said of her sister Emily’s book “Wuthering Heights is rustic all through. It is moorish, wild, and knotty as a root of heath.” And so are the family dynamics.
This enduring classic has been adapted for movies, TV series, put to song by Kate Bush and satire by Monty Python, with soulmates Cathy and Heathcliff communicating with semaphore flags across the moor.
It’s been a set book on the English National Curriculum and the subject of many essays, my favourite by Andrea Dworkin claiming that the whole thing represents “bad emotional health.” And so it does.
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