Reviews of A New Kind Of Wilderness, The Marching Band, Good One and Magic Farm by MARIA DUARTE, ANDY HEDGECOCK and MICHAL BONCZA
Latest editorial
Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater
GORDON PARSONS responds to Chris Jury's attack on the ‘Shakespeare cult’ in the Morning Star
Wider reach: The RSC is broadcasting its production of Macbeth in cinemas on April 11
SCOTT ALSWORTH foresees the coming of the smaller, leaner, and class conscious indie studio, with art as its guiding star
MARJORIE MAYO recommends an accessible and unsettling novel that uses a true incident of death in the Channel to raise questions of wider moral responsibility
MIK SABIERS wallows in a night of political punk and funk that fires both barrels at Trump
Reasonable radicalism, death in Abu Dhabi, locked-room romance, and sleuthing in the Blitz
SIMON DUFF recommends a new album from renowned composer and oud player Anour Brahem.
JAMES WALSH has a great night in the company of basketball players, quantum physicists and the exquisite timing of Rosie Jones
I ONCE heard a leading scholar argue that it was a shame that Shakespeare’s work had to be spoilt by stage performances, an attitude exemplifying the snobbery that Chris Jury describes in his recent demolition of the so-called Shakespeare cult in this newspaper.
Although academics can gain pleasure from examining the texts and preparing their erudite lectures, the plays were never meant to provide bewildering examination grist for generations of kids who mostly, as a consequence, will never wish to engage with Shakespeare again.
But, as any teacher who has experienced the excited involvement of a young audience enjoying a live modern production knows, the “difficulties” that make classroom textual studies a pain disappear as the language is brought to life through the chemistry of theatre.
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GORDON PARSONS recommends an ideal introduction to the writer who was first to give the English a literary language
GORDON PARSONS welcomes a graphic biography of George Sand, the most popular French novelist in 19th-century Britain
