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