Reviews of A New Kind Of Wilderness, The Marching Band, Good One and Magic Farm by MARIA DUARTE, ANDY HEDGECOCK and MICHAL BONCZA
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An infection yet to heal
There's an invisible third presence throughout John Kani’s magnificent play — the malevolent incubus of apartheid, says GORDON PARSONS
Mirror to apartheid: John Kani and Anthony Sher in Kunene and the King
SCOTT ALSWORTH foresees the coming of the smaller, leaner, and class conscious indie studio, with art as its guiding star
MARJORIE MAYO recommends an accessible and unsettling novel that uses a true incident of death in the Channel to raise questions of wider moral responsibility
MIK SABIERS wallows in a night of political punk and funk that fires both barrels at Trump
Reasonable radicalism, death in Abu Dhabi, locked-room romance, and sleuthing in the Blitz
SIMON DUFF recommends a new album from renowned composer and oud player Anour Brahem.
JAMES WALSH has a great night in the company of basketball players, quantum physicists and the exquisite timing of Rosie Jones
Kunene and the King
Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon
VETERAN white South African actor Jack Morris (Anthony Sher) is due to crown his career by playing King Lear. Diagnosed with terminal liver cancer, from the moment his medical carer Lunga Kunene (John Kani) turns up, their respective attempts to find a working relationship are beset by their country’s shared history.
In Kani’s two-hander, their progress towards recognising one another as individuals and not as products of their corrupted past is infused with humour and mediated through confronting cultures, languages and, fascinatingly, as the stricken Jack struggles to learn Lear’s lines, Shakespeare.
Just as Shakespeare’s character has to learn to see his world through unclouded vision and find a shared humanity, so Jack edges towards a freedom born of mutual respect. Similarly, Kunene has to assert his professional pride and racial self-respect to cope with an awkward patient wallowing in sardonic disgust at his situation.
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