by Tom Kelly

STEVE JOHNSON recommends a protest album with a harder edge than many in the genre

EWAN CAMERON holds his nose for a dive into mainstream comedy aimed at the political centre

CARL DEATH introduces a new book which explores how African science fiction is addressing climate change

PETER MASON relishes a legend of Jamaican roots reggae still plying his trade with a large degree of spirit

DENNIS BROE finds much to praise in the new South African Netflix series, but wonders why it feels forced to sell out its heroine

Timeloop murder, trad family MomBomb, Sicilian crime pages and Craven praise

MARK TURNER welcomes the rebirth of a once great Welsh jazz festival

BRIAN HANNAN introduces a timely celebration of one of the UK’s first communist MPs in his home town of Paisley

New releases from Cassandra Jenkins, Ryan Davis & the Roundhouse Band, and Case Oats

GAVIN O’TOOLE welcomes the reissue of a seminal work of revolutionary theory that have genuine relevance in the current context

RON JACOBS rides shotgun with a member of Black Bloc on the wave of anti-capitalist protests of the 1990s and early 2000s

MATTHEW SHARPE recommends the essays of a Renaissance politician that instruct and unnerve after 400 years

PHOEBE INGLEBY relishes the unexpected power of pins, zips and buttons to stitch together stories of connection, resistance and ancestral memory

MATTHEW HAWKINS is mesmerised by a performance that dissolves the line between audience and performer

Fiery words from the Bard in Blackpool and Edinburgh, and Evidence Based Punk Rock from The Protest Family

In his second round-up, EWAN CAMERON picks excellent solo shows that deal with Scottishness, Englishness and race as highlights

MICHAL BONCZA, LEO BOIX, MARJORIE MAYO and ANDY HEDGECOCK review The Kingdom, Young Hearts, Marlee Maitlin: Not alone any more, and Stans

JOHN GREEN recommends an Argentinian film classic on re-release - a deliciously cynical tale of swindling and double-cross

CHRIS SEARLE speaks to Chris Laurence, bassist and bandmate of saxophonist TONY COE

by Clare Evans

ANGUS REID squirms at the spectacle of a bitter millennial on work experience in a gay sauna

PAUL BUHLE agrees that a grassroots movements for change in needed in the US, independent of electoral politics

Given the tawdry push and pull around disability benefits, MATTHEW HAWKINS relishes Dan Daw’s defiant celebration of body and sexuality

ED RAMPELL is disappointed by the confusing results of embedding cameras amid a Ukranian platoon

MIKE COWLEY relishes an exhibition that reminds us, in the teeth of establishment pushback, that lasting change always begins in workplaces, communities and the street
 

In search of political satire, EWAN CAMERON dips into the tombola of the fringe to find armageddon, mushrooms, and a mud goddess

KEVIN BRYAN reviews Soul 66, Suzy Thompson, and Butterfield Blues Band

JOHN HAWKINS wrestles with the anti-humanist fantasies of techno-feudalist thinking

With reservations, RON JACOBS recommends a deep dive into the nature, history, and mindset of US intelligence

TOM STONE checks the political coordinates of a festival where the pleasures of nostalgia were (sometimes) harnessed to a new message 

by Josie Giles

SIMON PARSONS is beguiled by a dream-like exploration of the memories of a childhood in Hong Kong

ANDY HEDGECOCK recommends that these beautifully written diaries from Gaza be essential reading for thick-skinned MPs

BOB NEWLAND doubts the political credentials, but praises the description of the impossible bind of a UN mediator in Libya in the era of Trump

MICHAL BONCZA and MARIA DUARTE review 2000 Meters to Andriivka, Savages, The Legend of Ochi, and The Naked Gun

ANGUS REID is bowled over by a cinematic masterpiece that examines the labour of nursing in forensic, dramatic detail

by Yvonne Reddick

GORDON PARSONS advises you to get up to speed on obscure ancient ceremonies to grasp this interpretation of a late Shakespearean tragi-comedy

STEVE JOHNSON speaks to DJ and singer/songwriter Mark Radcliffe

JAMES WALSH takes advantage of an evening of comedy snippets to pick out which clowns will make it in Edinburgh

DENNIS BROE enjoys the political edge of a series that unmasks British imperialism, resonates with the present and has been buried by Disney

MAYER WAKEFIELD is swept up by the tale of the south London venue where music forged alliances across race, class and identity

FIONA O CONNOR recommends an unflinching depiction of child sexual abuse and its aftershocks, set in a working-class Liverpool family

New releases from Paul Weller, Wet Leg, and Dino Saluzzi

WILL STONE relishes the chance to hear the Isle of Wight indie sensation in an intimate setting

MAYER WAKEFIELD applauds Rosamund Pike’s punchy and tragic portrayal of a multi-tasking mother and high court judge

PAUL DONOVAN relishes the spectacle of a 1950s detective in pursuit of a 500-year-old murder mystery

Paul MacGee of Manifesto Press invites you to a special launch on Saturday August 2.

A deadly epidemic has led to martial law. Behind boarded-up windows — in a house haunted by abduction, hunger and fragmented memories — a shred of desperate hope remains.  

Prizes all round: the Bard hands plaudits to the Miners Gala, OT&JC, Joe Solo, Black Sabbath’s frontman and the Lionesses

WILL STONE fact-checks the colourful life of Ozzy Osbourne

JAMES CROSSLEY applauds a lucid biography of the German radical preacher who reemerged as a hero in the GDR

GUILLERMO THOMAS is intrigued by a history of the Middle East that demonstrates how promising post colonial beginnings were snuffed out by Western imperialist interests

Star cartoonist JAMIE BRITTON is in awe of a graphic novel of epic proportions that explores class, religion and globalisation via the strange cultivation of Ginseng in the US Midwest

MICHAL BONCZA and MARIA DUARTE review Zero, Bring Her Back, Gazer, and The Fantastic Four: First Steps

MARIA DUARTE recommends the intricate study of a high-performance and highly dysfuntional German family

CHRIS SEARLE speaks to vocalist Jacqui Dankworth

by Matt Duggan

LAUDAN NOOSHIN praises the Design and Disability exhibition at the V&A

LEO BOIX reviews a caustic novel of resistance and womanhood by Buenos Aires-born Lucia Lijtmaer, and an electrifying poetry collection by Chilean Vicente Huidobro

NICK MATTHEWS welcomes the return of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s music to the repertoire of this years’ Three Choirs Festival

MATTHEW HAWKINS applauds a psychotherapist’s dissection of William Blake

New releases from Christina Alden and Alex Patterson, Odette Michell, Clementine Lovell

SUSAN DARLINGTON highly recommends a novel setting for a play that is a rip-roaring yarn about kindness and helping people to belong

RON JACOBS welcomes a timely homage to one of the IWW and CPUSA’s most effective orators

JOHN GREEN is fascinated by a very readable account of Britain’s involvement in South America

ANDY HEDGECOCK relishes an exuberant blend of emotion and analysis that captures the politics and contrarian nature of the French composer

ANDY CROFT rallies poets to the impossible task of speaking truth to a tin-eared politician

RITA DI SANTO gives us a first look at some extraordinary new films that examine outsiders, migrants, belonging and social abuse

Strip cartoons used to be the bread and butter of newspapers and they have been around for centuries. MICHAL BONCZA asks our own Paul Tanner about which bees are in his bonnet

GORDON PARSONS acknowledges the authority with which Sarah Kane’s theatrical justification for suicide has resonance today

MARIA DUARTE and ANGUS REID review Friendship, Four Letters of Love, Tin Soldier and The Ballad of Suzanne Cesaire

MARIA DUARTE recommends the ambitious portrait of an agricultural community confronted by the trauma of enclosure

JOHN GREEN is stirred by an ambitious art project that explores solidarity and the shared memory of occupation

by Marjorie Lotfi

KATE HUNTER draws attention to Back to Back theatre, who draw disabled actors, factory workers and cardboard together to create an epic, and double-edged spectacle of warfare

LEAH MACLAUGHLIN recommends the story of a transplant: the quiet choreography that carries a gift of life from one person to another

ALAN MORRISON guides us through the richly descriptive and accessible poetry of a notable British-Irish poet

New releases from Allo Darlin’, Loyle Carner and Mike Polizze

MARY CONWAY applauds the success of Beth Steel’s bitter-sweet state-of-the-nation play

MIKE QUILLE applauds an excellent example of cultural democracy: making artworks which are a relevant, integral part of working-class lives

SALEEM BADAT and VASU REDDY introduce a new book about an outstanding interpreter of the world, and an activist scholar committed to changing society

Warming up for his Durham gig, the bard pays attention to the niceties of language

PAUL DONOVAN is fascinated by a deep dive into contemporary social crises, that examines how they are manipulated by elites

ALEX HALL follows the battered fortunes of Syria, a multi-ethnic country caught in the crossfire of competing imperialist interests

WILL PODMORE peruses a new history of the opening weeks of conflict between Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia

STEVEN ANDREW welcomes a fine introduction to FC United of Manchester, the team set up in opposition to Manchester United

MICHAL BONCZA, MARIA DUARTE and ANGUS REID review The Other Way Around, Modi: Three Days On The Wing Of Madness, Watch The Skies, and Superman

MARIA DUARTE recommends a chilling examination of the influence of Evangelical Christianity over the far right in Brazil

by Widad Nabi

CHRIS SEARLE pays tribute to the late South African percussionist, Louis Moholo-Moholo

MAYER WAKEFIELD relishes a witty and uplifting rallying cry for unity, which highlights the erasure of queer women

BLANE SAVAGE recommends the display of nine previously unseen works by the Glaswegian artist, novelist and playwright

JOHN HAWKINS recommends that you watch on Channel 4 the film that the BBC refused to broadcast

A heatwave, a crimewave, and weird bollocks in Aberdeen, Indiana horror, and the end of the American Dream

DAI O’BRIEN, one of the festival’s DeafZone co-ordinators explains

Re-releases from Bobby Wellins/Kenny Wheeler Quintet, Larry Stabbins/Keith Tippet/Louis Moholo-Moholo, and Charles Mingus Quintet

HENRY BELL notes the curious confluence of belief, rebuilding and cheap materials that gave rise to an extraordinary number of modernist churches in post-war Scotland

MOLLY DHLAMINI welcomes a Pan-Africanist and Marxist manifesto that charts a path for Africa’s resurgence

GORDON PARSONS is disappointed by an unsubtle production of this comedy of upper middle class infidelity

PAUL FOLEY welcomes a dramatic account of the men and women involved in the pivotal moment of the 5th Pan African Congress

MARTIN HALL passes time in the sanguine company of a traditional conservative, recalling their disastrous governments

JOHN HAWKINS welcomes the passion, grief, precision and elegance of an eloquent witness of genocide

SUE TURNER is appalled by the story of the only original colonising family to still own a plantation in the West Indies

The Star's critics ANGUS REID, MICHAL BONCZA and MARIA DUARTE review Hot Milk, An Ordinary Case, Heads Of State, and Jurassic World Rebirth

MARIA DUARTE recommends the creepy thrills of David Cronenburg’s provocative and macabre exploration of grief

RUTH AYLETT relishes poetry that explores the historical echoes to be heard in Alicante, last refuge of the Spanish Republican government

by Alan McGuire

CHRIS SEARLE speaks to Ethiopian vocalist SOFIA JERNBERG

WILL STONE witnesses a thrilling festival super-charged with opposition to the British government’s policies on Gaza

This is a concert of ambition and courage by organist and improviser Wayne Marshall, says SIMON DUFF

SUSAN DARLINGTON is charmed by an arena show that crosses Great Gatsby glamour with Jane Eyre madness

MARY CONWAY is blown away by a flawless production of Lynn Nottage’s exquisite tragedy

New releases from Toby Hay, Bruce Springsteen, Bonnie Dobson & The Hanging Stars

ALEX HALL welcomes a book about Gaza that recognises how imperial capitalism defines groups of people by their non-existence

RON JACOBS welcomes a survey of US punk in the era of Reagan, and sees the necessity for some of the same today

MARJORIE MAYO welcomes challenging insights and thought-provoking criticisms of a number of widely accepted assumptions on the left

ALEX DITTRICH hitches a ride on a jaw-dropping tour of the parasite world

The Labour Party proposal to scrap benefits for those unable to work will be debated in Parliament next Tuesday, and threatens the most vulnerable in our society. ALAN MORRISON presents some responses in poetry

JAN WOOLF finds out where she came from and where she’s going amid Pete Townshend’s tribute to 1970s youth culture

MARY CONWAY revels in the Irish American language and dense melancholy of O’Neill’s last and little-known play

The bard plays Clacton Arts Centre, a miraculous venue that cannot be closed because it is an idea built on hope

MARJORIE MAYO, JOHN GREEN and MARIA DUARTE review Sudan, Remember Us, From Hilde, With Love, The Road to Patagonia, and F1

MARIA DUARTE recommends the very human portrayal of Anna Politkovskaya, a journalist in Putin’s Russia

This is a remarkable set of hop hip, salsa, reggae, soul, cumbia and traditional Mexican music finds TONY BURKE

By Alexis Lykiard


MATTHEW HAWKINS enjoys the perverse jocularity, depraved glamour and inner turbulence of the Tate gallery’s tribute to Leigh Bowery

On the centenary of the birth of the anti-colonial thinker and activist Frantz Fanon, JENNY FARRELL assesses his enduring influence

MANJEET RIDON relishes a novel that explores the guilty repressions – and sexual awakenings – of a post-war Dutch bourgeois family

New releases from Madalitso Band, Gabriel da Rosa, and Femi Kuti

New releases from Steve Tilston, FolkLaw, and Patch and the Giant

New releases from Hannah Rose Platt, Kemp Harris, and Spear Of Destiny

SETH SANDRONSKY savours a personal account of the life and thought of the great Italian revolutionary

ALEX HALL is unsurprised by the evidence of systemic corruption in the US, and unsettled by the undertone of alarm

JOHN GREEN applauds an excellent and accessible demonstration that the capitalist economy is the biggest threat to our existence

BOB NEWLAND, a former London Recruit, recommends the extraordinary memoir of struggle veteran Kingsley Mamobolo

JOHN HAWKINS recommends an important new film - that can be shared for free - to the Palestine Solidarity Movement and the NUJ

This plundering of the archive tells us little about reality, and more about the class bias of the BBC, muses DENNIS BROE

LEO BOIX salutes the revelation that British art has always had a queer pulse, long before the term became cultural currency

JOHN GREEN, ANDY HEDGECOCK and MARIA DUARTE review Holloway, The Last Journey, Red Path and Elio

Is there a political message in the scenario of a plague of raging zombies in the UK, and kids growing up with it, wonders MARIA DUARTE

by Lynn White

CHRIS SEARLE speaks to saxophonist and retired NHS orthopaedic surgeon ART THEMEN

PAUL FOLEY picks out an excellent example of theatre devised to start conversations about identity, class and belonging

SYLVIA HIKINS casts an eye across the contemporary art brought to a city founded on colonialism and empire

ANGUS REID applauds the ambitious occupation of a vast abandoned paper factory by artists mindful of the departed workforce

GORDON PARSONS joins a standing ovation for a brilliant production that fuses Shakespeare’s tragedy with Radiohead's music

Reviews of More, Remembering Now, and New Vienna

ALEX HALL is thrilled by a grassroots history of of Swindon’s stunning industrial and creative past

RON JACOBS welcomes a book that tells the story of the far right in Greece from the perspective of migrants

The bard and his muse urge you to support and replenish the people’s history

When a couple moves in downstairs, gentrification begins with waffles and coffee, and proceeds via horticultural sabotage to legal action

SAM WHEELER applauds a visceral, thoughtful interrogation of radicalisation and national identity in contemporary Britain

JOHN GREEN isn’t helped by the utopian fantasy of a New York Times bestseller that ignores class struggle and blames the so-called ’progressives’

IAN SINCLAIR wades through a useful but academic study of the protest song

GORDON PARSONS recommends a gripping account of flawed justice in the case of Pinochet and the Nazi fugitive Walther Rauff

ANGUS REID, MARIA DUARTE and JOHN GREEN review Protein, Tornado, How to Train Your Dragon, and Jane Austen Wrecked My Life

MARIA DUARTE recommends the deeply moving story, based on real experience, of a homeless single mother

By Mark Fiddes

CHRIS SEARLE speaks to saxophonist Vaughan Hawthorne-Nelson

MATTHEW HAWKINS enjoys a father’s memoir of life with his autistic son, and the music they explore together

JENNY FARRELL relishes a modern parable that challenges readers to confront the legacies of empire, and the possibilities of resistance

A corrupted chemist, a Hampstead homosexual and finely observed class-conflict at The Bohemia

CAL MCBRIDE recommends that you follow a coming-of-age trans story through harrowing lows to a point of optimistic triumph

KEVIN DONELLY recommends the re-release of Mathieu Kassovitz’s La Haine, improved by a new soundtrack by Asian Dub Foundation

WILL STONE applauds a fine production that endures because its ever-relevant portrait of persecution

Re-releases from Sharks and Return To Forever, and a new release from Nikki O’Neill