MARIA DUARTE is swept along by the cocky self-belief of a ping-pong hustler in a surprisingly violent drama
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Best of 2018: Books
BY PETER MASON
STEVE ANDREW recommends a lively and often moving guide to once vibrant spaces that have been abandoned or swept away
GEOFF BOTTOMS appreciates the local touch brought to a production of Dickens’s perennial classic
MARY CONWAY is disappointed by a production whose design and cartoonish acting overwhelms the close scrutiny of characters
SUSAN DARLINGTON enjoys the raucous familiarity of a traditional topsy-turvy pantomime
RON JACOBS introduces the latest novel by the best writer of US working-class fiction writing today
Slaughterhouse Prayer (London Books) by John King is a really important novel, one that could and should change prevailing attitudes about how human beings treat animals.
Dark place: a US slaughterhouse (Pic: US Department of Agriculture)
Tense and all-consuming as it goes into dark places, it reminds us not only how badly and brutally we deal with our fellow creatures but also how we have the temerity to project our own worst vices on to innocent beings of other species.
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Ben Cowles speaks with IAN ‘TREE’ ROBINSON and ANDY DAVIES, two of the string pullers behind the Manchester Punk Festival, ahead of its 10th year show later this month
CAROLINE FOWLER explains how the slave trade helped establish the ‘golden age’ of Dutch painting and where to find its hidden traces
The Morning Star sorts the good eggs from the rotten scoundrels of the year
