MARIA DUARTE, FIONA O’CONNOR and ANDY HEDGECOCK review Savage House, Enzo, Madfabulous, and Erupcja
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Casting a contemporary eye on Shakespeare
MARY CONWAY recommends a production of Richard II that makes a striking break with tradition
IN THE HERE AND NOW: Ayesha Dharker, Adjoa Andoh and Leila Farzad in Richard II
[Ingrid Pollard]
CHRIS SEARLE recommends a work of love and deep admiration for a great musician
KENNY MacASKILL relishes a fictionalised account of the life and death of the principled Irish anti-colonialist, executed for betraying his English imperial masters
FIONA O’CONNOR admires an ambitious first novel that loosens South Africa’s rainbow collective to examine the racial tensions within
Aussie mining corporation murder, Liverpudlian ex-cop amnesia, a naive vigilante tries to reset capitalism, and the riddle of the dead psychoanalyst
SYLVIA HIKINS is persuaded by an entertaining play that the true miracle of Lourdes would be for attitudes toward disability to change
Richard II
Globe Theatre online
IN THIS production of Shakespeare’s Richard II, all the roles are played by women of colour and the result is that stereotypes are blown to pieces and the play’s universality and contemporary significance amplified.
In place of the rather constrained view of a single-nation Plantagenet Britain straight from the history books, co-directors Lynette Linton and Adjoa Andoh capture the melange that is the England we know today with its complex ethnic range and cultural heritage.
Designer Rajha Shakiry’s costumes flaunt the purples and magentas, the greens and golds of Africa and Asia and all the characters wear combinations of dresses and trousers that evoke Moroccan bazaars and the exotic East.
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