RITA DI SANTO draws attention to a new film that features Ken Loach and Jeremy Corbyn, and their personal experience of media misrepresentation
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More themes than thrills in humdrum family drama
Cavorting: Paul Bradley and Belinda Lang in Humble Pie
[Manuel Harlan]
JULIA TOPPIN recommends Patti Smith’s eloquent memoir that wrestles with the beauty and sorrow of a lifetime
MARJORIE MAYO welcomes an account of family life after Oscar Wilde, a cathartic exercise, written by his grandson
KEN COCKBURN guides us through a survey of Chekov’s early short fiction, and the groundwork it laid for his later masterpieces
ANDY HEDGECOCK revels in a hugely enjoyable but deadly serious examination of the 1930s, that is an indictment of our own era
The bard distills our hellish times into fiery words
Humble Boy
Orange Tree, Richmond
THE BIG problem with a contemporary play which pays homage to other writers is that, without a strong authorial voice, the end product is less than satisfactory.
Thus it proves with Charlotte Jones's Humble Boy, which won several awards after its 2001 premiere.
There are shades of Alan Ayckbourn here and Tom Stoppard. And there's a reworking of Hamlet too, as son Felix Humble (Jonathan Broadbent) returns to the family home after the death of his father to find his mother Flora (Belinda Lang) cavorting with lover George Pye, played with energetic vulgarity by Paul Bradley.
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Although this production was in rehearsal before the playwright’s death, it allows us to pay homage to his life, suggests MARY CONWAY
MARY CONWAY relishes two matchless performers and a masterclass in tightly focused wordplay
SUSAN DARLINGTON applauds the translation of Jane Eyre into a ballet that preserves the drama of her formative years
The Star's critic MARIA DUARTE review Cottontail, Memoir of a Snail, Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy, and Captain America: Brave New World