Reviews of Habibi Funk 031, Kayatibu, and The Good Ones
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The state of the nation
ANGUS REID welcomes a penetrating study of a dysfunctional Scottish family at the time of the independence referendum
SCOTS CHEKHOV: Group Portrait in a Summer Landscape
[Fraser Brand]
SIMON DUFF relishes the cross contamination of Damien Hirst’s greatest hits by street artists from France and the US
In view of the grooming gangs inquiry, SIMON PARSONS feels the relevance of this powerful examination of trauma suffered at Medomsley Youth Detention Centre
JOHN GREEN doubts the motivations of a US war photographer who never questions why, or for whom, she is producing images of imperialist conflict
MARIA DUARTE reviews Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere, Hedda, The Mastermind, and Regretting You
TONY CONWAY welcomes a thrilling and concise history of Hope not Hate, that is also a manual full of tactical advice
PAUL DONOVAN welcomes an inspiring account of living with deafness that has important lessons for the treatment of deaf people in today’s UK
Group Portrait In A Summer Landscape
By Peter Arnott, Royal Lyceum Edinburgh
THIS is an extraordinary play. It equates the inability to grieve with the loss of faith in socialism, and demonstrates at a human level how this paralyses the ability to act or think politically.
A loose family group assemble at a house in rural Scotland in the summer before the independence referendum, and the dialogue captures the way that binary choice, yes or no, infiltrated conversations and lives.
Unlike the Brexit vote two years later, that channelled anti-establishment rage and was led by the right to a majority, playwright Peter Arnott’s characters are situated within the hesitant ambiguity of the Scottish left. They may have been Marxists once, but they express neither working-class resentment nor a confident vision of the future.
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ANGUS REID deconstructs a popular contemporary novel aimed at a ‘queer’ young adult readership
A landmark work of gay ethnography, an avant-garde fusion of folk and modernity, and a chance comment in a great interview
ANGUS REID applauds the inventive stagecraft with which the Lyceum serve up Stevenson’s classic, but misses the deeper themes