Chris Searle speaks to producer/film-maker RITA HARGRAVE about the new album Renegade Queens

by Claire Booker

WILL STONE is frustrated by a performance that chooses to garble the lyrics and drown the songs in reverb

STEVE JOHNSON salutes the mellifluous tones and clear-minded political message of a uniquely relevant Birmingham-born singer-songwriter

TOM KING casts a wary eye over this stage adaptation of Hollinghurst’s survey of metropolitan gay life in Thatcher’s Britain

RITA DI SANTO points out the social experience of exploitation and oppression that inform the popular winners at this year’s festival

PETER MASON is tickled by a new book and exhibition that mine the rotten anachronism of the monarchy for laughs

A Nazi zeppelin whodunnit, death amidst detoxification, a twistaholic’s delight, and noir fiction for criminals

DAVID MCKINSTRY appreciates the life and art of writer, songwriter, singer, socialist and Republican, Dominic Behan

New releases from The Dreaming Spires, Bruce Springsteen, and Chet Baker

TOM STONE urges you to catch the last dates of a New York singer/songwriter, never afraid to challenge her audiences musically or politically

WILL STONE in entertained, and some, by the Irishman Shobsy and the Dutch/Kiwi combo My Baby

JAN WOOLF examines work that aims to give viewers a material experience of the environments in the polar north and Britain equally affected by the climate crisis

The bard recalls advice received 50 years ago from his TRB muse, and sorts out appropriate legislation for football club ownership

STEVE ANDREW enjoys an account of the many communities that flourished independently of and in resistance to the empires of old

KENNY MACASKILL recommends an informative and highly readable exposure of the asbestos industry

JOHN GREEN enjoys a highly informative stroll through the evolutionary history of trees and planetary life

MARTIN GRAHAM casts a critical eye over an informative study of the fact that solar power - universally available - is now cheaper than fossil fuels

MICHAL BONCZA and MARIA DUARTE review Facing War, Kontinental ’25, Bugonia, and Relay

ANDY HEDGECOCK recommends a cinematic glimpse of the role of the British in establishing the zionist state

MAYER WAKEFIELD is frustrated by a production of Ibsen’s classic study of an anti-heroine that fails to elucidate her motivations

PETER MASON tunes his ear into the domestic affairs of a Carribbean couple with a troublesome son

by Fiko D

Evidence points to a Scottish provenance for the extraordinary Irish illuminated manuscript, the Book of Kells, suggests RACHEL MOSS

This stunning film about a Bulgarian textile worker highlights the exploitative nature of Euro-capitalism, says RITA DI SANTO

CHRIS SEARLE relishes an account of the years when a black American music carried a message of anti-racism and class struggle

GEORGE FOGARTY is captivated by a brilliant one-man show depicting life in HMP Strangeways

PETER MASON thrills to Irish folk band The Haar

Reviews of Habibi Funk 031, Kayatibu, and The Good Ones

SIMON DUFF relishes the cross contamination of Damien Hirst’s greatest hits by street artists from France and the US

RITA DI SANTO draws attention to a festival whose dedication to Palestinian cinema and experience is like no other

In view of the grooming gangs inquiry, SIMON PARSONS feels the relevance of this powerful examination of trauma suffered at Medomsley Youth Detention Centre

ALEX HALL is disappointed by a superficial investigation of how consumer choice can be influenced, that ignores the fact that most never have such a choice

PAUL DONOVAN welcomes an inspiring account of living with deafness that has important lessons for the treatment of deaf people in today’s UK

MARJORIE MAYO recommends a compelling account of how women survived a Nazi concentration camp and lend their experience to today’s fight against the far right

TONY CONWAY welcomes a thrilling and concise history of Hope not Hate, that is also a manual full of tactical advice

MARIA DUARTE reviews Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere, Hedda, The Mastermind, and Regretting You

JOHN GREEN doubts the motivations of a US war photographer who never questions why, or for whom, she is producing images of imperialist conflict

When the spectacle of gangland violence overwhelms the text, you get the “Scottish play” far removed from RSC founding principles, muses Gordon Parsons

MIKE DUGGAN views the maps that renowned sci-fi writer Ursula K LeGuin used to make her fictions, and draws attention to the way such drawings circulate in society

by Andy Croft

by Andy Croft

MATTHEW HAWKINS relishes the valiant defiance of two gay Scottish painters whose example resists both collectors’ taste and historical fiction

KEVIN DONNELLY accepts the invitation to think speculatively in contemplation of representations of people of African descent in our cultural heritage

Essays on contemporary Latin American feminism, a poetry debut by a queer Texan of Mexican heritage, and a lush volume of tango and milonga drawings

PAUL DONOVAN relishes Michael Rosen’s ability to use poetry and humour to lighten the darkest of moments

RON JACOBS recommends an accessible graphic history of the Partisans and their many instances of heroic and successful resistance to fascism

The bard pays homage to his two muses: his wife and his football club

MARY CONWAY is disappointed by an incoherent show that fails to question stereotypical assumptions about the Soviet Union

SIMON PARSONS recommends a striking production that revisits recent history and offers a timely warning

PAUL FOLEY applauds a careful, intelligent and absorbing production of Brian Friel’s classic depiction of Irish west coast tragedy

RON JACOBS is enthralled by an account of the surveillance and political repression on the left in the US

JOHN McINALLY welcomes a rigorous class analysis of the history and exploitation of sectarianism by the Scottish ruling elite

WILL STONE, JAMES WALSH and MARIA DUARTE review Souleymane’s Story, Sunlight, Good Fortune, and After The Hunt

MARIA DUARTE recommends the true story of an enterprising US convict whose campaign of theft involved military planning and exquisite manners

ALEX HALL recommends an exhaustive investigation of the means by which the Starmer faction assassinated the left

by Omar Sabbagh

by Omar Sabbagh

CHRIS SEARLE speaks to drummer WILL GLASER

WILL STONE is impressed by a tour de force rendition of three decades’ worth of orchestral chamber pop

EWAN KOTZ holds on tight for a second helping of egg-punk from Snooper

DAVID MORGAN recommends a refreshingly inspiring novel that features encounters with some tremendous women

BOB NEWLAND recommends a political thriller from former anti-apartheid activist Peter Hain

JAMES WALSH speaks to Chris Thorpe-Tracey - among many things, a one-time Morning Star columnist — about songs, cities, politics and prophecy

by Sally Lewis

DENNIS BROE situates the new Netflix series House of Guinness within a genre that is dazzled by the perverse spectacle of capitalist domination

New releases from Max Richter, Julius Asal, and Jean-Michel Jarre  

New releases from Cuban pianist Aruan Ortiz, trumpeter Kenny Dorham, and London pianist Geoff Castle

RON JACOBS applauds a reading of black history in the US that plots the path from autonomy to self-governance and then liberation

ANDY HEDGECOCK is intrigued by a scholarly account of how systemic disinformation can exacerbate the perception of threat and foster hatred