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
WELSH actor and activist Michael Sheen brings big-name clout to online monologues Mum and Dad from Cardiff’s Sherman Theatre but the guts of the pieces is in the writing, thanks to Gary Owen, author of the superb Iphigenia in Splott.
Quite apart from the obvious advantage of having a name which describes a strategic rugby kick, Owen’s other writing credits include the dark and brutal Killology. He’s donated the two monologues to the Sherman and the struggling theatre asks only for donations to view them.
shermantheatre.co.uk/performance/interval/mum-dad/
Sheen is joined by Lynn Hunter, always authentic and hugely watchable, in these near-verbatim records of stories told by Owen’s parents about their lives growing up in Pembrokeshire.
GEORGE FOGARTY is dazzled by a breathtakingly skillful puppet version of Shakespeare’s greatest love poem
ROGER D HARRIS and SARA FLOUNDERS challenge propaganda against the blockaded socialist island
WILL STONE is impressed by a tour de force rendition of three decades’ worth of orchestral chamber pop
Fiery words from the Bard in Blackpool and Edinburgh, and Evidence Based Punk Rock from The Protest Family


