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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A sickness at the heart of things
The B*easts has disquieting things to say about the sexualisation of young children, says MARY CONWAY
Cogent: Monica Dolan
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
The B*easts
Bush Theatre, London
THAT fine actor Monica Dolan both writes and performs this shocking tale of our times in which a pre-pubescent child makes a disturbed yet purposeful bid for attention.
Lila, from an early age, has shown an increasingly insistent obsession with the female body and, in particular, with the power of female breasts. So much so that, aged eight, she demands of her defenceless mother breasts all of her own.
The result is a trip to Brazil for cosmetic surgery and the appearance of double D-cup Jordan-sized breasts on a child so young that all hell is unleashed. Mother Karen is arrested and charged with child abuse.
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