ANDY HEDGECOCK, MARIA DUARTE and ANGUS REID review Ackroyd & Harvey: The Art of Activism, The Lost Bus, A Big Bold Beautiful Journey, and Happyend
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Seductive sound organisation
CONRAD LANDIN recommends a unique aural event on a Scottish beach
WORTH SOUNDING OUT: Irvine Beach
MARY CONWAY relishes the spectacle of a domestic implosion in a setting strangely divorced from any social, political or cultural context
SUSAN DARLINGTON appreciates a retelling of the Merlin myth that emphasises family and belonging
JAN WOOLF is beguiled by the tempting notion that Freud psychoanalysed Hitler in a comedy that explores the vulnerability of a damaged individual
TONY BURKE reviews new releases from Cheikh Lo, Mishra & Deepa Shakthi, N’Faly Kouyate
Gin Lane by William Hogarth is a critique of 18th-century London’s growing funeral trade, posits DAN O’BRIEN
ANDY HEDGECOCK sees his scepticism lessened by a story is more complex and far-reaching than is initially apparent
Signal-on-Sea
Irvine Beach
A YOUNG couple scream as they plunge into the water. A flock of seagulls descend on an overturned rubbish bin, surrounded by indifferent teenagers. A family’s picnic, complete with gas stoves and giant folding tables, becomes an object of envy as others struggle against the elements to get their barbecues going.
Close your ears and it could be just another sunny day in Irvine, one of several prime beaches on Scotland’s west coast in easy reach for the working class of the central belt.
But all around are tannoy speakers anchored in the sand, as if the nostalgic comparisons of our present predicament to the beaches of Dunkirk have culminated in a Blitz re-enactment in North Ayrshire.
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