WILL STONE fact-checks the colourful life of Ozzy Osbourne
Top Girls, National Theatre, London
Caryl Churchill's classic from the 1980s is a damning indictment of the impact of Thatcherism on women and it's lost none of its relevance
]Superb: Liv Hill as Angie and Katherine Kingsley as Marlene in Top Girls
[Johan Persson] 
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
IT’S somewhat depressing to watch a play almost four decades old, set in a particularly politically turbulent time in British history, and ponder at the end of it how little things have changed.
But that’s perhaps why Top Girls is one of Caryl Churchill’s most celebrated works, one that has been regularly performed throughout Britain since first written.
The National’s production is a far cry from the play’s Royal Court 1982 premiere, when a cast of six performed all 18-odd roles. It’s one of the first professional revivals to use different actors to play all the various characters and, while this might avoid any momentary confusion for audiences, it doesn’t necessarily do the play justice.
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