WILL STONE fact-checks the colourful life of Ozzy Osbourne
What we were – and still are
The Globe Theatre's productions of Shakespeare's history plays show how acutely they mirror a divided country, says MARY CONWAY
Explosive: Michelle Terry as Hotspur
[Tristram Kenton] 
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
SHAKESPEARE was not a king nor even a man in power. He was a jobbing playwright whose itinerant lifestyle allowed him to observe life in high and low places and to use the fads and foibles of the world at large as fodder for his incomparable talents.
His history plays, timeless favourites on the British stage, sometimes appear as immutable period pieces and often they are brandished like the Union Jack to incite nationalism.
But, always, they explore the fragility of the crown and its quest for power.
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