Reviews of A New Kind Of Wilderness, The Marching Band, Good One and Magic Farm by MARIA DUARTE, ANDY HEDGECOCK and MICHAL BONCZA
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GORDON PARSONS sees an adaptation of Moliere’s satire on religious hypocrisy translate magnificently from 17th century Paris to 21st century Birmingham
Hypocrisy in action: Asif Khan as Tartuffe
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
Tartuffe
The Swan Theatre, Stratford-Upon-Avon
SET in the Brummie-Pakistani Muslim household of a successful businessman who has become obsessed by a local would-be imam, Iqbal Khan’s production of Tartuffe works a remarkable theatrical alchemy.
One can imagine some devout believers of Birmingham’s large Pakistani Muslim community being as outraged by this treatment of their religion as Louis XIV’s religious establishment when the play originally aroused so much antagonism.
But from the outset Anil Gupta and Richard Pinto’s adaptation, true to Moliere, ensures that the reactions of Imran Pervaiz’s family clearly show that Tartuffe is an out-and-out phoney. Asif Khan as the toothily oily imposter cons his credulous victim with beguiling ease.
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