To rescue Kahlo from the clutches of the corporate art market, we need to acknowledge the overt and covert political dimensions of the work, demands GAVIN O’TOOLE
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Bitter truths
MARY CONWAY admires Jan Woolf’s forensic clarity in a powerful portrait of TE Lawrence
Mascuud Dahir, Suzanna Hamilton and Douglas Clarke-Wood in Blood Gold and Oil
[Simon Jackson]
If you can see past the relentless commodification you will be rewarded by enormously powerful work, suggests JENNY MITCHELL
CHRIS SEARLE revels in the one-off collaboration between an American polymath and a British Muslim, and detects the presence of their revolutionary forebear
GORDON PARSONS revels in an ebullient production of Shakespeare’s magical comedy
BRENT CUTLER welcomes a thoughtful analysis of the Erdogan regime, viewed through the evolving history of a neighbourhood in Istanbul
GORDON PARSONS regrets the price, but is dazzled by an outstandingly ambitious study of the way art restoration in particular, and culture in general was weaponised by the Nazis
Blood Gold and Oil
Upstairs at the Gatehouse, London N6
BLOOD Gold and Oil currently at the Gatehouse is a play laden with passion. It is also redolent of deep personal commitment and forensic diligence on the part of skilled playwright Jan Woolf.
The drama sets out with a difficult task: first to penetrate layer upon layer of one man’s psyche and reach his inner self; second and simultaneously, to draw us into one mighty struggle that shapes our present and casts a pall over our past.
The man in question is TE Lawrence, known to most as Lawrence of Arabia; the focus the Arab Revolt of 1916-18 in which British imperialists betrayed their willing allies and created the fractured and conflicted Arab world we know today.
Similar stories
JAN WOLF enjoys a British revival of the 1972 come of age farce/panto Pippin
Although this production was in rehearsal before the playwright’s death, it allows us to pay homage to his life, suggests MARY CONWAY
FRANCIS BECKETT introduces his new play that aims to give its audience a taste of what a far-right triumph would be
JAN WOOLF is beguiled by the tempting notion that Freud psychoanalysed Hitler in a comedy that explores the vulnerability of a damaged individual