STEVE ANDREW enjoys an account of the many communities that flourished independently of and in resistance to the empires of old
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Trivial pursuit
A play on the Litvinenko poisoning entertains but offers little fresh insight, says MARY CONWAY
Comic interlude: Tom Brooke, MyAnna Buring and Amanda Hadingue in A Very Expensive Poison
[Marc Brenner]
TOM STONE urges you to catch the last dates of a New York singer/songwriter, never afraid to challenge her audiences musically or politically
JAN WOOLF examines work that aims to give viewers a material experience of the environments in the polar north and Britain equally affected by the climate crisis
The bard recalls advice received 50 years ago from his TRB muse, and sorts out appropriate legislation for football club ownership
MICHAL BONCZA and MARIA DUARTE review Facing War, Kontinental ’25, Bugonia, and Relay
MAYER WAKEFIELD is frustrated by a production of Ibsen’s classic study of an anti-heroine that fails to elucidate her motivations
PETER MASON tunes his ear into the domestic affairs of a Carribbean couple with a troublesome son
A Very Expensive Poison
Old Vic, London
AS DRAMA, the poisoning of Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko by the radioactive substance polonium-210 in 2006 is bound to draw the crowds.
The case was disturbing, not just because of the pain and terror for the individual but because it exposed a destabilising brand of international politics that impacts on all.
Writer Lucy Prebble, as in her earlier play Enron, again tackles a theme of huge public fascination and enormous complexity and the clarity of the story owes much of its detail to Luke Harding who wrote a book on the affair.
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