To rescue Kahlo from the clutches of the corporate art market, we need to acknowledge the overt and covert political dimensions of the work, demands GAVIN O’TOOLE
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Dracula’s killer spills the beans
SUSAN DARLINGTON sees an innovative production that seeks imaginatively to unravel an old whodunnit riddled with ethical and political undertones
(L to R) Matt Prendergast as Detective Sergeant Donaldson and Riana Duce as Mina Harker
[Ed Waring]
If you can see past the relentless commodification you will be rewarded by enormously powerful work, suggests JENNY MITCHELL
CHRIS SEARLE revels in the one-off collaboration between an American polymath and a British Muslim, and detects the presence of their revolutionary forebear
GORDON PARSONS revels in an ebullient production of Shakespeare’s magical comedy
BRENT CUTLER welcomes a thoughtful analysis of the Erdogan regime, viewed through the evolving history of a neighbourhood in Istanbul
GORDON PARSONS regrets the price, but is dazzled by an outstandingly ambitious study of the way art restoration in particular, and culture in general was weaponised by the Nazis
Dracula: The Untold Story
Leeds Playhouse
FRAMED within an already familiar story arc, Leeds-based company Imitating the Dog present Dracula: The Untold Story within the context of alternatives.
In this not-quite-sequel, it was Mina Harker and not her husband Jonathan who was responsible for killing the vampire. Society, she claims, wasn’t ready to have a woman hero but now she means to write herself back into history.
Vulnerable yet steely, Riana Duce’s Harker is joined by WPC Williams (Adela Rajnovic) and Detective Sergeant Donaldson (Matt Prendergast) in a police interview room on New Year’s Eve 1965.
Similar stories
GORDON PARSONS salutes the apt return of Brecht’s vaudevillian cartoon drama that retains the vitality of the boxing or the circus ring
PETER MASON applauds a stage version of Le Carre’s novel that questions what ordinary people have to gain from high-level governmental spying
DAVID NICHOLSON recommends a dazzling production of Bernstein’s opera set in a world where chaos and violence are greeted by equanimity
GORDON PARSONS acknowledges the authority with which Sarah Kane’s theatrical justification for suicide has resonance today