PAUL DONOVAN is chilled by the contemporary resonance of Harper Lee’s coming of age tale amidst racism and white supremacy in this excellent production
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Mexican take on political ossification
GEOFF BOTTOMS recommends the unashamedly light-hearted escapism on offer in this stage version of the 1963 film
Full of mysterious religious references and radical sound design, the Scottish duo’s new offering is candidate for album of the year, suggests SIMON DUFF
MARY CONWAY revels in a powerful reminder that human lives are not defined by physical perfection
PAUL DONOVAN recommends the fine performances in this account of the pre-war meeting between the US president and the British king
TECLYN AROD relishes an intimate celebration of jazz improvisation that mixes local and national musicians
I’ll Melt the Snow off a Volcano with a Match
The Pit, Barbican,
London EC2
4/5
A theatre group researching the background of Mexico’s political system comes across a forgotten book, The Institutionalised Revolution — it fascinates them and so initiates two intertwined narratives, one — the life of Natalia the author of the said book, a militant activist of the teachers’ union and, the second — the politics of modern Mexico.
The point of departure is the extraordinarily long-lasting hold on power by the Party of Institutionalised Revolution (PRI), which in 1929 appropriated the revolutionary ideals of Cardenas, Zapata and Villa for the national bourgeoisie and kept repackaging them every six years as mass consumption election fodder.
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MARY CONWAY becomes impatient with the intellectual self-indulgence of Tom Stoppard in a production that is, nevertheless, total class
PETER MASON applauds a stage version of Le Carre’s novel that questions what ordinary people have to gain from high-level governmental spying
DAVID NICHOLSON recommends a dazzling production of Bernstein’s opera set in a world where chaos and violence are greeted by equanimity