Broken on the wheel of injustice: Freeman
HENRY BELL is fascinated by the underlying curiosities and contradictions of one of the great poets of the Mediterranean
DAVID RENTON recommends a books that explores the ways in which disabled people are made to feel both of and not part of this world
JONATHAN TAYLOR is fascinated by the philosophical problems that permeate the art of life-writing
GORDON PARSONS steps warily in between the lines of Britain’s most famous diarist
SIMON DUFF recommends a recording of Arvo Part that takes the listener on a pilgrimage through seemingly distant times and events of the Bible
THIS tightly woven Strictly Arts production, opening with a series of agonising sequences representing the victims’ tormented fates, initially focuses on the 1846 case of William Freeman, a black New York boy wrongly imprisoned.
Suffering from years of physical abuse that left him permanently brain damaged, on release he senselessly murdered four white people and was sentenced to be hanged, despite his lawyer's plea of insanity caused by his brutalisation in prison.
United by their abusive treatment by police and prison warders, the story of the other characters brings the story up to date with the 2016 death of black woman Sarah Reed in Holloway Prison. Debilitated by mental-health problems, her case revealed abject failings within the penal system.
SIMON PARSONS is beguiled by a dream-like exploration of the memories of a childhood in Hong Kong
The announcement of a Women’s Justice Board should be cautiously welcomed, writes SABINA PRICE, but we need to see a recognition that our prison system is in crisis and disproportionately punishes some of the most vulnerable people in society
SIMON PARSONS applauds an imaginative and absorbing updating of Strindberg’s classic
