MARIA DUARTE is swept along by the cocky self-belief of a ping-pong hustler in a surprisingly violent drama
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Radical insights into how we make history
STEVE ANDREW recommends a lively and often moving guide to once vibrant spaces that have been abandoned or swept away
GEOFF BOTTOMS appreciates the local touch brought to a production of Dickens’s perennial classic
MARY CONWAY is disappointed by a production whose design and cartoonish acting overwhelms the close scrutiny of characters
SUSAN DARLINGTON enjoys the raucous familiarity of a traditional topsy-turvy pantomime
RON JACOBS introduces the latest novel by the best writer of US working-class fiction writing today
A Radical History of the World
by Neil Faulkner
(Pluto Press, £14.99)
HISTORY, in our frenetic times, is increasingly seen as one damned thing after another. Not so with Neil Faulkner’s epic treatment, based on his Marxist understanding that mankind makes its own history but not under conditions of its own choosing.
In adopting a holistic approach, Faulkner provides an alternative to the received historical record, with his book ranging from the earliest appearance of hominins, our human forebears, to the present.
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ANDY HEDGECOCK relishes two exhibitions that blur the boundaries between art and community engagement