MICK MCSHANE is roused by a band whose socialism laces every line of every song with commitment and raw passion
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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
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
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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