To rescue Kahlo from the clutches of the corporate art market, we need to acknowledge the overt and covert political dimensions of the work, demands GAVIN O’TOOLE
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Waiting for Beckett
SIMON PARSONS applauds a brilliant version of Waiting for Godot that has to negotiate a grumpily possessive literary estate
FUNNIER THAN GODOT: Merce Ribot and Patricia Rodriguez in Nothing Happens (twice)
[Pic: Pau Ros]
If you can see past the relentless commodification you will be rewarded by enormously powerful work, suggests JENNY MITCHELL
CHRIS SEARLE revels in the one-off collaboration between an American polymath and a British Muslim, and detects the presence of their revolutionary forebear
GORDON PARSONS revels in an ebullient production of Shakespeare’s magical comedy
BRENT CUTLER welcomes a thoughtful analysis of the Erdogan regime, viewed through the evolving history of a neighbourhood in Istanbul
GORDON PARSONS regrets the price, but is dazzled by an outstandingly ambitious study of the way art restoration in particular, and culture in general was weaponised by the Nazis
Nothing Happens (Twice)
MAC Birmingham
WITH the 70th anniversary of Waiting for Godot’s first production, various theatre companies, including Little Soldier Productions, have turned to this iconic play as a stimulus for fresh material.
Merce Ribot and Patricia Rodriguez are Spanish multilingual physical theatre performers who have charted their ineffectual quest to gain the rights to perform Godot while making a living from a song and dance routine for the Andalucian tourist board in a London shopping centre.
The six times daily sales pitch dressed as flamingoes becomes the wonderfully absurd reinvention of Beckett’s characters filling time with empty words while trying to find a purpose for their actions and existence.
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MARY CONWAY becomes impatient with the intellectual self-indulgence of Tom Stoppard in a production that is, nevertheless, total class
PETER MASON applauds a stage version of Le Carre’s novel that questions what ordinary people have to gain from high-level governmental spying
GORDON PARSONS is blown away by a superb production of Rostand’s comedy of verbal panache and swordmanship
MAYER WAKEFIELD is gripped by a production dives rapidly from champagne-quaffing slick to fraying motormouth