MICK MCSHANE is roused by a band whose socialism laces every line of every song with commitment and raw passion
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The Political History of Smack and Crack, Bristol Old Vic/Touring
Telling reportage on the 1980s drugs havoc in inner-city Britain
DYSFUNCTIONAL: Eve Steele and William Fox as Mandy and Neil
New releases from Mountain, Soul Asylum and Michael McDermott
ALEX HALL is disgusted by the misuse of ‘emotional narratives’ to justify uninformed geo-political prejudice
SUE TURNER welcomes a thoughtful, engaging book that lays bare the economic realities of global waste management
JOHN GREEN welcomes an insider account of the achievements and failures of the transition to democracy in Portugal
SIMON PARSONS applauds an imaginative and absorbing updating of Strindberg’s classic
PETER MASON is enthralled by an assembly of objects, ancient and modern, that have lain in the mud of London’s river
INSIGHTFUL and stirring, this award-winning 70-minute exposé of the rise in drug abuse at the time of the 1981 inner-city riots is another exciting production at Bristol Old Vic’s Studio space.
Eve Steele and William Fox play Mandy and Neil, both from dysfunctional Mancunian families, who live through the riots in Moss Side repeated that year in many English cities suffering from social deprivation.
According to writer Ed Edwards, before 1981 there were only 3,000 known drug addicts in England, invariably middle-class users, and heroin was largely unknown on the streets. But four years later, 333,000 mainly working-class addicts were registered as heroin freely flowed through the inner cities.
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SIMON PARSONS applauds an imaginative and absorbing updating of Strindberg’s classic
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SIMON PARSONS applauds a tense and thoughtful production that regularly challenges our political engagement and prejudices
