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

HENRY BELL is fascinated by the underlying curiosities and contradictions of one of the great poets of the Mediterranean

DAVID RENTON recommends a books that explores the ways in which disabled people are made to feel both of and not part of this world