To rescue Kahlo from the clutches of the corporate art market, we need to acknowledge the overt and covert political dimensions of the work, demands GAVIN O’TOOLE
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Superb working-class cabaret
ANDY HEDGECOCK applauds the results of a new initiative by Equity that gives free rein to working-class talent
STAR LINE-UP: Imran Yusuf, Mark Thomas, Kate Smurthwaite. Rory McLeod and Equity's Mark Kelly
[Neil McFarlane]
If you can see past the relentless commodification you will be rewarded by enormously powerful work, suggests JENNY MITCHELL
CHRIS SEARLE revels in the one-off collaboration between an American polymath and a British Muslim, and detects the presence of their revolutionary forebear
GORDON PARSONS revels in an ebullient production of Shakespeare’s magical comedy
BRENT CUTLER welcomes a thoughtful analysis of the Erdogan regime, viewed through the evolving history of a neighbourhood in Istanbul
GORDON PARSONS regrets the price, but is dazzled by an outstandingly ambitious study of the way art restoration in particular, and culture in general was weaponised by the Nazis
Fair Play Cabaret
Quorn Grange Hotel, Leicestershire (GFTU Education Trust)
DRIVING across the Leicestershire Wolds to Quorn, I narrowly avoid a deer caught in my headlights. It’s fitting that an evening of exhilarating chaos begins with an adrenaline rush.
Fair Play Cabaret opens with a set by compere Mark Thomas. Warming up a small and slightly inhibited audience takes considerable confidence and 40 years’ experience of stagecraft. Thomas breaks the fourth wall, talks about “workshopping” an apparently underappreciated punchline and urges us to rearrange the seating to make performers feel “embraced.” It works brilliantly.
As funny and informative as his much-missed Channel 4 documentaries, Thomas’s act lurches through a range of themes — the vast acreage of land consumed by golf, an airport runway delay, anxieties about the Starmer government and an appearance at a literary festival in Lewes, in the slot before Andrea Leadsom.
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