JAMIE BRITTON recommends that we all buy at least two copies of a remarkable book of poems
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Pertinent history lesson
The insights into women and power in a new play on Elizabeth I resonate uncomfortably as an arch-misogynist returns to Downing Street, says KATHERINE M GRAHAM
CONFLICTED: Abigail Cruttenden as Elizabeth I
[Johan Persson]
MARIA DUARTE goes down a bilingual rabbit hole with an impressive Jodie Foster
DAVID HARVIE recommends a selection of Harry Cleaver’s writing that documents working-class activism and offers a method, and a way of understanding and investigating the world
DAVID YEARSLEY is fascinated by the account of four composers who transformed their experiences of the second world war and the Holocaust into deeply moving works of art
PETER MASON thrills to the sound of south London-born Yussef Dayes, and the galaxy of musicians drawn into his orbit
From post-human revolution in Puerto Rico to trans poetics and queer mythmaking, these three books that imagine new ways of being together
Swive [Elizabeth]
Sam Wanamaker Theatre, London
WATCHING any piece of theatre on the night of a general election is an odd experience. But watching one which shows us a thoughtful, philosophical and astute ruler while the country elects Boris Johnson is particularly jarring.
Ella Hickson’s Swive, tightly directed by Natalie Abrahami, is an epic and sweepingly poetic engagement with the life of Elizabeth I, with her childhood, imprisonment, ascension to the throne, leadership challenges and desires all under scrutiny.
Despite the epic historical scale, a sense of intimacy prevails, with the settings predominantly domestic. Four actors play nine roles, with Nina Cassells as the princess and Abigail Cruttenden as the queen and it is abundantly clear that in both these stages of her life Elizabeth’s power is bound up with her sex.
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