GABRIELE NEHER draws attention to an astoundingly skilled Flemish painter who defied the notion that women cannot paint like men
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If Shamima Begum had a sister
SIMON PARSONS applauds a tense and thoughtful production that regularly challenges our political engagement and prejudices
Hiba Medina as Antiya in Antigone (On Strike)
[Nir Segal]
The Bard pays homage to Hull’s finest promoter and venue, and awards Douze Points to Laibach
KEVIN DONNELLY outlines how the bourgeois institutions inhibit our ability to to view art in revolutionary ways, and suggests some tactics to overturn it
ANDY HEDGECOCK welcomes an accessible - and optimistic - take on our relationship to new technology
JOHN GREEN suggests that a new, biased, and highly readable re-hash of the story of the Cambridge Five be taken with a large pinch of salt
BRENT CUTLER welcomes a timely reminder of the long history of protests and the outdoor spaces in which they takes place
Antigone (On Strike)
Park Theatre
THIS modern, imaginative reworking of the Greek tragedy involves a British-born, Isis child bride and her sister’s desperate campaign to stop her being stripped of her citizenship and denied her time in court. The parallels to Shamima Begum’s desperate plight, still detained in a Syrian camp along with 18 other British women, are obvious.
The production centres on the political machinations of the British Conservative government in promoting this policy, while remaining true to the nature of classical Greek theatre by making the audience active participants in the process.
Set within an interactive media studio, we are asked to vote electronically on various questions relating to the issue. Our responses, in between being bombarded with reportage interwoven with political sound bites and the manoeuvrings of an ambitious home secretary, are set against the embattled reflections of the sister at the heart of the campaign.
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