WILL STONE fact-checks the colourful life of Ozzy Osbourne
Celebrating Cable Street
LYNNE WALSH interviews writer Alex Kanefsky and designer Yoav Segal about their new musical, Cable Street
VETERAN ANTI-FASCIST: (Left) Ubby Cowan, veteran of the battle of Cable Street and inspiration for the designs of his grandson, (Right) Yoav Segal
[Courtesy of Yoav Segal] 
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
THE Battle of Cable Street resonates as a vital moment in radical history, with the stories of those who fought there living on for future generations. The 1936 clash, between working-class people of London’s East End and Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists, has attracted much attention from musicians and actors.
From the mid-1980s, when folk-punk band The Men They Couldn’t Hang gave us the anthemic The Ghosts of Cable Street, through to folkies The Young ‘Uns creating a new song, Cable Street, as part of their show about the anti-fascist Johnny Longstaff. A few years ago, the inimitable Stephen Berkoff staged his verse play, They Shall Not Pass, and this year sees the continued run of The Merchant of Venice 1936, transposed to the East End, and Tracy-Ann Oberman as Shylock, as fascists threaten the community.
More from this author
Caroline Darian, daughter of Gisele Pelicot, took part in a conversation with Afua Hirsch at London’s Royal Geographical Society. LYNNE WALSH reports
This year’s Bristol Radical History Festival focused on the persistent threats of racism, xenophobia and, of course, our radical collective resistance to it across Ireland and Britain, reports LYNNE WALSH
LYNNE WALSH previews the Bristol Radical History Conference this weekend
With most of recorded history dominated by the voices of men, LYNNE WALSH encourages sisters to read the memoirs of women – and to write their own too
