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