MICK MCSHANE is roused by a band whose socialism laces every line of every song with commitment and raw passion
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Jude the abused
Mary Conway is put through the mill and ultimately enlightened by an unrelenting portrayal of a cruel all-male world
Luke Thompson (Willem), James Norton (Jude)
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
A Little Life
Harold Pinter Theatre
If your stomach turns at gruelling acts of paedophilia, man-on-boy rape and the gushing blood of self-harm, this play is not for you.
On the other hand, if you value a brutally graphic, visceral, relentless journey into the dark centre of one man’s soul, you’ll stay and tough it out. It’s an epic tale of almost allegorical significance which rises far above what might initially seem like a catalogue of gratuitous misery.
And James Norton of Happy Valley inhabits Jude, the lead, with a self-effacing and tender display that converts before our eyes to one of sacrificial splendour.
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MARY CONWAY is disappointed by a star-studded adaptation of Ibsen’s play that is devoid of believable humanity
MARY CONWAY applauds the revival of a tense, and extremely funny, study of men, money and playing cards
MARY CONWAY applauds the study of a dysfunctional family set in an Ireland that could be anywhere
MARY CONWAY relishes two matchless performers and a masterclass in tightly focused wordplay
