Reviews of Habibi Funk 031, Kayatibu, and The Good Ones
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The heart of the Matti
DENISE MINA tells Angus Reid why she's updated Brecht's anti-capitalist satire to the era of zero-hours contracts and food banks
FORENSICALLY FUNNY: Denise Mina in rehearsal
SIMON DUFF relishes the cross contamination of Damien Hirst’s greatest hits by street artists from France and the US
In view of the grooming gangs inquiry, SIMON PARSONS feels the relevance of this powerful examination of trauma suffered at Medomsley Youth Detention Centre
JOHN GREEN doubts the motivations of a US war photographer who never questions why, or for whom, she is producing images of imperialist conflict
MARIA DUARTE reviews Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere, Hedda, The Mastermind, and Regretting You
TONY CONWAY welcomes a thrilling and concise history of Hope not Hate, that is also a manual full of tactical advice
PAUL DONOVAN welcomes an inspiring account of living with deafness that has important lessons for the treatment of deaf people in today’s UK
MR PUNTILA and his Man Matti was Bertholt Brecht’s idea of a popular comedy — a sure-fire socialist crowd-pleaser. He believed in the play so much that in 1948 he used it to launch the Berliner Ensemble, the legendary theatre company whose practice still resonates globally.
He wrote it in Finland in 1940 while he hopped from country to country, staying one step ahead of the nazi occupations of European countries. Among his work of that period it is the odd one out, being entirely to do with economic relations and nothing to do with the war.
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ANGUS REID applauds the inventive stagecraft with which the Lyceum serve up Stevenson’s classic, but misses the deeper themes