RITA DI SANTO draws attention to a new film that features Ken Loach and Jeremy Corbyn, and their personal experience of media misrepresentation
Latest editorial
Confessions of a Barista on Platform 1
Light, pacy and very funny, Joanna Murray's coffee-shop chronicle is a great read
JULIA TOPPIN recommends Patti Smith’s eloquent memoir that wrestles with the beauty and sorrow of a lifetime
MARJORIE MAYO welcomes an account of family life after Oscar Wilde, a cathartic exercise, written by his grandson
KEN COCKBURN guides us through a survey of Chekov’s early short fiction, and the groundwork it laid for his later masterpieces
ANDY HEDGECOCK revels in a hugely enjoyable but deadly serious examination of the 1930s, that is an indictment of our own era
The bard distills our hellish times into fiery words
IN WHAT’S a journey of self-discovery, via owning and running a coffee shop on St Leonards station in East Sussex, Joanna Murray interacts with a whole variety of great and evocatively named characters, from Stig the station manager to The Pirate, the Ice Queen, Dot Cotton and Station Man.
And there’s Harriet Harpie, whose rudeness finally gets her banned, leading to the memorable outburst: “That bitch wouldn’t serve me because I wouldn’t say please.”
There are amusing recurrent themes, such as people asking for the toilet but being told that there isn’t one on the station or in the coffee shop — not that this stops them repeatedly asking the same question.
Similar stories
MAYER WAKEFIELD laments the lack of audience interaction and social diversity in a musical drama set on London’s Underground
PAUL DONOVAN applauds a timely play that explores the resonances of McCarthyite nationalism in today’s US
A pamphlet by British Latinx poet Patrick Romero McCafferty, poetry by Anglo-Argentinian Miguel Cullen, and a book of conjuring poems by Mexican Pedro Serrano
Aslef general secretary MICK WHELAN speaks to Ben Chacko about rail renationalisation, the Employment Rights Bill and why we shouldn’t write off this Labour government