MICK MCSHANE is roused by a band whose socialism laces every line of every song with commitment and raw passion
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Trivial pursuit
A play on the Litvinenko poisoning entertains but offers little fresh insight, says MARY CONWAY
Comic interlude: Tom Brooke, MyAnna Buring and Amanda Hadingue in A Very Expensive Poison
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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
A Very Expensive Poison
Old Vic, London
AS DRAMA, the poisoning of Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko by the radioactive substance polonium-210 in 2006 is bound to draw the crowds.
The case was disturbing, not just because of the pain and terror for the individual but because it exposed a destabilising brand of international politics that impacts on all.
Writer Lucy Prebble, as in her earlier play Enron, again tackles a theme of huge public fascination and enormous complexity and the clarity of the story owes much of its detail to Luke Harding who wrote a book on the affair.
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