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
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Rising to the bait
An outstandingly original film addresses burning issues of class conflict head on, says MIKE QUILLE
If you can see past the relentless commodification you will be rewarded by enormously powerful work, suggests JENNY MITCHELL
CHRIS SEARLE revels in the one-off collaboration between an American polymath and a British Muslim, and detects the presence of their revolutionary forebear
GORDON PARSONS revels in an ebullient production of Shakespeare’s magical comedy
BRENT CUTLER welcomes a thoughtful analysis of the Erdogan regime, viewed through the evolving history of a neighbourhood in Istanbul
GORDON PARSONS regrets the price, but is dazzled by an outstandingly ambitious study of the way art restoration in particular, and culture in general was weaponised by the Nazis
ESCHEWING the straightforward narrative arcs of social realism employed by a Ken Loach or a Mike Leigh, in Bait director Mark Jenkin’s Brechtian approach never lets us forget we’re watching a film.
That sense of confronting material reality is there in the hand-processed images, scratchy and lined and a soundscape that engages yet disturbs.
The dialogue, recorded and then dubbed, imbues the uncomprehending, Pinteresque conversations — clipped and occassionally comic — with an eerie sense of alienation, abetted by moments where the plot runs ahead of itself.
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KEN COCKBURN guides us through a survey of Chekov’s early short fiction, and the groundwork it laid for his later masterpieces
STEPHEN ARNELL wonders at the family resemblance between former prince Andrew and his great-uncle ‘Dickie’
ANDY CROFT rallies poets to the impossible task of speaking truth to a tin-eared politician
MIKE QUILLE applauds an excellent example of cultural democracy: making artworks which are a relevant, integral part of working-class lives