GEOFF BOTTOMS applauds a version set amid the violent conflicts of the 19th century west African Oyo empire before the intervention of British colonialism

Chris Searle speaks to saxophonist LARRY STABBINS

by Allan Gaw

SEAMUS HIGGINS introduces some basic facts about the role of sugar in driving a worldwide crisis of diet-related diseases

MICHAL BONCZA welcomes a new version of a classic of British working class literature that should be placed on every school English syllabus

Japanese innovation, Costa Rican skullduggery, Glasgow Central suicide, and good deeds punished in London

GILL PARSONS introduces the remarkable process by which her childhood experience of a convalescent home has become a new drama

GEOFF BOTTOMS applauds a timely and necessary play that explores the experience of neurodiverse twins

New releases from The Orb, Meredith Monk, and Marconi Union

The bard distills our hellish times into fiery words

CONRAD LANDIN picks his highlights from Celtic Connections, and makes his recommendations for the last weekend

ANDY HEDGECOCK revels in a hugely enjoyable but deadly serious examination of the 1930s, that is an indictment of our own era

MARK TURNER applauds Michael Sheen’s determination to revive a Welsh National Theatre with Thornton Wilder’s study of love, loss and community

RITA DI SANTO draws attention to a new film that features Ken Loach and Jeremy Corbyn, and their personal experience of media misrepresentation

JULIA TOPPIN recommends Patti Smith’s eloquent memoir that wrestles with the beauty and sorrow of a lifetime

MARJORIE MAYO welcomes an account of family life after Oscar Wilde, a cathartic exercise, written by his grandson

KEN COCKBURN guides us through a survey of Chekov’s early short fiction, and the groundwork it laid for his later masterpieces

MARIA DUARTE and ANGUS REID review Is This Thing On?, Nouvelle Vague, Kangaroo, Shelter, and Melania

JOHN GREEN savours an elegy to black farmers in the deep south of the US: a vanishing way of life redolent with poetic and political meaning

Climate activist and writer JANE ROGERS introduces her new collection, Fire-ready, and examines the connection between life and fiction

by Victor Osemeka

WANJA KIMANI explores the many bonds of community experience expressed in in the bold and colourful imagery of a new mural

RUTH AYLETT appreciates the rich blend of poetry and music that accompanied the launch of the Morning Star’s anthology of poetry, Who We Are

ELEANOR DOBSON reflects on a stark visual record of the violent desecration of Tutankhamun’s mummified remains

New releases from Keeley, Lucinda Williams and Ye Vagabonds

MARY CONWAY applauds a brilliant two-hander that blows the lid off the abortion debate and rips your heart to shreds

RON JACOBS welcomes a timely biography of a contemporary of Marx and Engels who advocated revolutionary socialism

RICHARD CLARKE welcomes a study that extends an understanding of Marxism beyond human society to encompass the whole of nature

Despite an underwhelming finale, FIONA O CONNOR relishes a vivid exploration of the Cinecitta of Pasolini and Fellini at their height

PAUL DONOVAN enjoys a brutally honest rags to riches memoir of the actor’s life, even if it clearly lacks any political insight

With satirical portraits of leftist rebels in two acclaimed films today, GREGORY FRAME traces the roots of Hollywood’s relationship to civil protest

JAN WOOLF ponders the works and contested reputation of the West German sculptor and provocateur, who believed that everybody is potentially an artist

MARIA DUARTE and MICHAL BONCZA review The History of Sound, H Is For Hawk, Saipan, and Mercy

MARIA DUARTE recommends a surreal and brilliant take on corporate lay-offs and their consequences

by Jamie Lynch

DENNIS BROE unpicks the subterfuge by which the BBC claims to represent working-class prison life in a new series

JULIA THOMAS unpicks the mental processes that explain why book-to-film adaptations so often disappoint

CONRAD LANDIN thrills to the voice of 79-year-old Emmylou Harris, that is enriched rather than compromised by the gravel of experience

RICHARD MURGATROYD appreciates a study that urges us to think about water differently, as a living entity with its own logic and intelligence

The debut novel by Uruguayan Eugenia Ladra, and poetry by Gerardo Diego

New releases from Zulu Guitar Blues, Fela Kuti, and Amadou & Mariam

CHRIS SEARLE urges you not to miss two powerful performers playing three nights that will celebrate the great pianist/composer Thelonious Monk

IAN SINCLAIR revels in the reissue of great recordings by one of the most recognisable and radical voices in British music

BRENT CUTLER welcomes a valuable contribution to discussions around the need to de-carbonise energy production

STEVE ANDREW is intrigued by a timely and well-researched book that demonstrates the conflicted history of the central Asian country

JOHN GREEN’s palate is tickled by useful information leavened by amusing and unusual anecdotes, incidental gossip and scare stories

GAVIN O’TOOLE welcomes a book that sets the assassination of Brian Thomson in the context of radical individualism — lost in a vast pick-and-mix of ideologies

SIMON PARSONS applauds an original, visual and movement-based take on the birth and death of a relationship

The bard contemplates X — anti-human vomit soup with dog shit croutons — and the Tory recycling bin that is Reform

ALAN MORRISON recommends an outstanding and timely anthology of poems that reflect the experience and consequences of African migration

BINOY KAMPMARK examines the food racket as evidenced by the recent promotion of Italian cuisine to the status of ‘intangible national heritage’

FIONA O’CONNOR and MARIA DUARTE review State of Statelessness, Rental Family, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, and The Rip

MARIA DUARTE recommends that this dramatic reconstruction of one instance of the Israeli killings in Gaza be seen as widely as possible

WILL SCHULER praises a stripped-back ‘anti-naturalist’ production of Arthur Miller’s drama about a corrupted family business

by Matt Gilbert

MATTHEW HAWKINS contrasts the sinister enchantments of an AI infused interactive exhibition with the intimacies disclosed by two real artists

DENNIS BROE surveys the new wild west: a technology that aims to “innovate” so fast that no government regulation or union negotiation can keep up

ANDY HEDGECOCK relishes a graphic portrayal of the corrosive impact of commodification, but can’t sympathise with the characters

ABIGAIL HARRISON MOORE welcomes a BBC prison drama that shows the importance of the classroom as a space to influence personal and social change

New releases from Van Morrison, Tyler Ballgame, and Dry Cleaning

JOHN WIGHT celebrates a new account of the life of the great British boxer and communist Len Johnson

STEVE ANDREW appreciates a passionate account of the Scottish Club during the ‘lost decade’

By telling the story of a lawless frontier town from the point of view of the Lakota, Chinese labourers, prostitutes and displaced prospectors, makes for a potted history of capital, suggests ALEX HALL

RON JACOBS welcomes a timely history of the Anti Imperialist league of America, and the role that culture played in their politics

JAN WOOLF surveys a national hoard of silver and gold

TONY BURKE speaks to Gambian kora player SUNTOU SUSSO

ANDY HEDGECOCK and MARIA DUARTE review Good Night, and Good Luck: Live from Broadway, Becoming Victoria Wood, Hamnet, and Song Sung Blue

MARIA DUARTE recommends a British boxing biopic about the stormy relationship between Nazeem Hamed and his trainer Brendan Ingle

PETER MASON applauds a stage version of Le Carre’s novel that questions what ordinary people have to gain from high-level governmental spying

By Hamish Wilson

CHRIS SEARLE speaks to Filipino-US saxophonist JON IRABAGON about the threat of AI in the time of Musk and Trump, and how an artist can respond

BETH DRISCOLL points out the value of print books in community culture and the barbarism of destroying libraries in Bosnia, Ukraine and Gaza

PETE HIRST introduces a theatre company from Wakefield dedicated to the propagation of socialist perspectives on present British political realities

JENNY FARRELL reminds us that the US novelist, famed for pulp fiction and nature stories, was, by virtue of life experience, a committed revolutionary socialist

BRENT CUTLER recommends a sober examination of the real risks and true merits of nuclear energy, and an exposure of the capitalist system as an obstacle to human betterment

MARY CONWAY recommends a spot of exquisitely staged, if socially unchallenging, escapism written 250 years ago

A deeply pleasing festive crime wave

Looking for moral co-ordinates after a tough year for rational political thinking and shared human morality

If true, the photo’s history is a damning indictment of the systematic exploitation of non-Western journalists by Western media organisations – a pattern that persists today, posit KATE CANTRELL and ALISON BEDFORD

Two inspring books — that’s your New Year’s musing from me on January 2 2026

JAN WOLF enjoys a British revival of the 1972 come of age farce/panto Pippin

A year of rich offerings that would have pricked any and all ears

By Rebecca Lowe

New releases by Porridge Radio, The Cribs, and Bjorn Meyer

Looking for moral co-ordinates after a tough year for rational political thinking and shared human morality

Although sitting was tight, DAVID NICHOLSON has had a whale of a time especially when joining in the sing along finale

BEN CHACKO salutes the Morning Star cartoonists

LUCY BURKE recommends a brilliantly compelling piece of ‘theatre verite’

JOSEPHINE BARBARO welcomes a diverse anthology of experiences by autistic women that amounts to a resounding chorus, demanding to be heard

PAUL BUHLE recommends an eminently useful book that examines the political opportunities for popular anti-fascist intervention

PETER MASON is entertained by the autobiography of Charlie Harper, one of punk’s most enduring figures

JAMIE BRITTON reaches for the sick bucket as he is forced to engorge detail after detail of the Royal Family’s wealth

by Jonathan Andersen

PAUL DONOVAN relishes the candour of a historian who refuses to whitewash the crimes of British imperial history

MARIA DUARTE picks the best and worst of a crowded year of films

STEVE JOHNSON picks his favourites from the many memorable albums of the year, and one stunning new festival

SIMON DUFF picks his favourites, from radical African-inspired electronic rhythms to improvisations on the organ

MARY CONWAY takes pride in the sheer variety of theatre, from updated revivals to new plays, on offer in London

From feminist manifestos to exiled lovers to mythic islands, LEO BOIX selects the best fiction, poetry and non-fiction

For GORDON PARSONS, a dramatic exploration of the abuse of young men at Medomsley Youth Detention Centre trumps Beckett, a couple of Hamlets and a bracing Candide

FIONA O’CONNOR picks books and films that show defiance in the face of violence and injustice

From pop anthems that take on patriarchy to masterful Gaza-themed Oud-playing, IAN SINCLAIR picks his best albums of the year

JEAN ROBERTS appreciates the way traditional panto can be remodelled into critique of the academy schools system

MARY CONWAY delights in a rarely performed comedy that recalls a Britain we remember in our bones

JOE GILL speaks to the Palestinian students in Gaza whose testimony is collected in a remarkable anthology

MARY CONWAY is riveted by a superbly crafted glimpse into the soul of a cast-off US star

SCOTT ALSWORTH searches for something – anything – worth recommending from the year’s releases

Although this production was in rehearsal before the playwright’s death, it allows us to pay homage to his life, suggests MARY CONWAY

IAN SINCLAIR recommends an important and timely book for climate politics right now and in the future

ROGER McKENZIE recommends a landmark study of black journalism in Britain that is a wake-up call to prioritise working-class struggles, where black people are recognised as an important part of the class

STEVE ANDREW recommends a lively and often moving guide to once vibrant spaces that have been abandoned or swept away

ANDY HEDGECOCK, MARIA DUARTE and ANGUS REID review The Six Billion Dollar Man, Avatar: Fire and Ash, Goodbye June, and Super Elfkins

MARIA DUARTE is swept along by the cocky self-belief of a ping-pong hustler in a surprisingly violent drama

CHRIS SEARLE picks his favourite albums of the year

GEOFF BOTTOMS appreciates the local touch brought to a production of Dickens’s perennial classic

by Miriam Spillane

DENNIS BROE waded through 89 TV series this year, and picks the wheat from the chaff

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

CHRIS SEARLE recommends an upcoming concert by the leading exponent of cross-cultural music-making in Britain

Artist of the Year is, without a doubt, BC Camplight. Meanwhile the touring started in earnest, details here 

GORDON PARSONS relishes an adaptation of Dahl’s children’s tale, but issues a warning for the over 11-year-olds

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

JONATHAN TAYLOR is fascinated by the philosophical problems that permeate the art of life-writing

GORDON PARSONS steps warily in between the lines of Britain’s most famous diarist

ALAN MCGUIRE relishes a celebration of handmade craftsmanship in the UK, and hears a quiet warning

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

SIMON PARSONS is fascinated by a play about the Iraq war where the carnage haunts those still alive

At a tragic but farcical meeting at Heathrow Terminal 3, bigotry is concealed, sporting history is recalled, and a novelty wine bottle is creatively re-purposed. By John Hawkins

MARIA DUARTE and ANDY HEDGECOCK review Preparation for the Next Life, The Tale of Silyan, Eleanor the Great, and Who, If Not Us: The Fight for Democracy in Belarus

LEO BOIX recommends the vivid story of a Brazilian hustler, reminding us that survival is rarely a solo act

CHRIS SEARLE speaks to Mexican/Uruguayan drummer GUSTAVO CORTINAS about the ecological conscience expressed in his new album

by Curtis Brown

SIMON DUFF recommends a recording of Arvo Part that takes the listener on a pilgrimage through seemingly distant times and events of the Bible

JENNY FARRELL relishes an intimate memoir about growing up in the household of the great Irish communist and playwright Sean O’Casey

GORDON PARSONS is impressed by superb acting in a stripped down version of John Galsworthy’s epic family drama

SIAN LEWIS relishes a comprehensive account of high rise social housing in Britain by prize-winning social and political historian Holly Smith

SIMON PARSONS feels a little overwhelmed by the joke count of an ebullient production that manages to convey Stoker’s Dracula without corpsing

SIMON PARSONS applauds an intriguing story of two Pakistani women working in Woolworths on the eve of the millennium

SYLVIA HIKINS enjoys a varied Scouse alternative to traditional pantomimes

Rereleases from The Pentangle, The Charlie Daniels Band, and Cousins and Willoughby

ANDY HEDGECOCK picks out his cultural highlights of 2025

Star cartoonist MALC MCGOOKIN finds lessons for today in the punch, and the economy of line, of an extraordinary generation of illustrators

ANDY CROFT welcomes the publication of an anthology of recent poems published by the Morning Star, and hopes it becomes an annual event

LEO BOIX, ANDY HEDGECOCK and MARIA DUARTE review Dreamers, It Was Just An Accident, Folktales, and Eternity

MARIA DUARTE recommends an intimate portrait of Jacinda Ardern, only the second prime minister to give birth while holding office

In search of political understanding, MATTHEW HAWKINS welcomes a critique of anti-semitism as codified by the Israeli state

HENRY BELL is sceptical of the notion that ‘progress’ is an ideology that the ruling class uses exclusively to camouflage appropriation

GAVIN O’TOOLE welcomes a coherent and radical call to arms against the failed model of networked neoliberal capitalism 

BEN CHACKO welcomes a masterful analysis that puts class struggle back at the heart of our understanding of China’s revolution

JENNY MITCHELL, poetry co-editor for the Morning Star, introduces her priorities, and her first selection

by Imasha Costa

JOHN GREEN is intrigued by the ethereal, ghostly quality of images of a London unobscured by the bustle of humanity

WILL STONE witnesses an experimental piano concerto inspired by the work of a young Jewish victim of the Nazis

JENNY FARRELL relishes an outstanding Palestinian novel that immerses readers in the sensory reality of Gaza, then and now

AI-induced murder, last rites for the mob-dog, a gullible common herd, and an exemplary Christmas chiller

DAVID HORSLEY reflects on the impact of the great Jamaican singer songwriter and actor Jimmy Cliff

New releases from The Belair Lip Bombs, Lisa O’Neill, and Sessa

SUSAN DARLINGTON relishes an inclusive production of a Dickens classic that makes no bones about the lived reality of the Victorian working class

RICHARD MURGATROYD enjoys a readable account of the life and meditations of one of the few Roman emperors with a good reputation

ALEX HALL asks whether intelligence, and stupidity, are the outcomes of poverty and wealth, and cultural norms

BRENT CUTLER is persuaded by a new account of the rise of Christianity, and the fall of the Roman empire

If non-human nature is devoid of value under the capitalist mode of production, this book presents the case for its reintegration, suggests HENRY BELL

The Bard takes issue with a BBC portrait of The Balkans, and sets the record straight

Pantos have the power to confirm people’s prejudices or sub-consciously challenge homophobic and transphobic attitudes, suggests GEOFF BOTTOMS

ANGUS REID urges you to visit Britain’s most remarkable - and mind-blowing - festival of contemporary music

MARIA DUARTE reviews Desperate Journey, Blue Moon, Pillion, and Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery

MARIA DUARTE recommends the remarkable and painful story of the lesbian who put women’s boxing on the map

WILL STONE enjoys a set by an artist too eclectic to be pigeonholed

RUTH AYLETT reviews two collections of outright political poetry

by Christopher Norris

The book feels like a writer working within his limits and not breaking any new ground, believes KEN COCKBURN

The portrait of Elisabeth Lederer carries a deep personal and political history. BENEDICT CARPENTER van BARTHOLD explains

As part of the 2025 London Jazz Festival Rich Mix offered intriguing sessions titled 'Persian Jazz,' CHRIS SEARLE was there

MARY CONWAY recommends the play for the truthfulness of the writing, the quality of the production and the vigorous characterisation