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
Latest editorial
Yule fare past its sell-by date
Triple trouble: Unique Spencer, Dan Starkey and Douggie McMeekin in The Night Before Christmas
[Darren Bell]
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
The Night Before Christmas
Southwark Playhouse
HEARD the one about the loser, the gay and the prostitute in a storeroom? Add an imprisoned elf and there you have Anthony Neilson’s 1995 play, an extended joke running to just over an hour.
Neilson's trio comprises Loser Gary, played with a winning child-like naivety by Douggie McMeekin, who's a divorced trader in dodgy goods and unlikely to be able to see his son over the holiday period. His mate Simon (Michael Salami), a cynically angry gay, is set on vociferously denouncing the plasticity of Christmas, while a foul-mouthed prostitute (Unique Spencer) is out to get a Power Rangers toy for her son whatever the cost.
Don Starkey’s elf, working for an international gift agency out of Hartlepool, is caught breaking into Gary’s lockup and is forced to give away the secrets of Christmas and grant three wishes in order to be released. That in a nutshell is Neilson’s exploration of Christmas through three sets of very jaded eyes.
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