PAUL DONOVAN is tickled by the excruciating take-downs of one of the funniest, wittiest, political writers around.

RON JACOBS points out, via a transcription of Kissinger’s secret recordings, that Trump could never have existed without Nixon and Kissinger

ELLIS RAE is persuaded that the advantages of the ‘talking cure’ are superior to the treatment of mental illness with drugs

PAUL DONOVAN applauds an excellently crafted new musical that explores the life and death of Ruth Ellis

GEOFF BOTTOMS relishes a profoundly human portrait of a family as it evolves across 55 years in Sheffield

PAUL FOLEY speaks to Mark Calvert, director of I, Daniel Blake before a new tour

MICHAL BONCZA introduces a sculpture that celebrates the end of Franco’s fascist rule while commemorating some of the last victims of its proclivity for mass murder

JOHN GREEN, MICHAL BONCZA and BELLA KATZ review The Good Boy, Broken English, and Don't Be Prey

ANDY HEDGECOCK peers into the US psyche to find deluded ambition, toxic aggression and an obsession with fame

by Khayelihle Benghu

ALAN MORRISON recommends a consummate, heart-warming collection about a working-class upbringing in the industrial north-east

MIK SABIERS is enveloped by the enchanting bass and vocals of Beth Rettig in a small but historic venue