MICK MCSHANE is roused by a band whose socialism laces every line of every song with commitment and raw passion
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The end of dialogue
SIMON PARSONS applauds an assured and enjoyable adaptation of Ali Smith’s meditative and pessimistic novel about Brexit Britain
Rebecca Banatvala in Harry MacDonald's adaptation of Autumn
New releases from Mountain, Soul Asylum and Michael McDermott
ALEX HALL is disgusted by the misuse of ‘emotional narratives’ to justify uninformed geo-political prejudice
SUE TURNER welcomes a thoughtful, engaging book that lays bare the economic realities of global waste management
JOHN GREEN welcomes an insider account of the achievements and failures of the transition to democracy in Portugal
SIMON PARSONS applauds an imaginative and absorbing updating of Strindberg’s classic
PETER MASON is enthralled by an assembly of objects, ancient and modern, that have lain in the mud of London’s river
Autumn
The North Wall Arts Centre, Oxford
ALI SMITH’s 2017 Booker Prize short-listed novel was regarded as one of the first post-Brexit works dealing with the ramifications of the previous year’s European Union membership referendum.
Its depiction of an increasingly insular and fearful country, set on erecting fences while petty, pedantic officialdom flourishes has proved remarkably prescient.
Harry McDonald’s timely adaptation of the novel remains essentially true to Smith’s work revelling in the nature of words, but has even broader implications now with nationalistic European movements growing ever stronger and the re-election of Donald Trump, with his alarmingly hostile and isolationist agenda.
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