STEPHANIE BROWN draws attention to the hidden labour of the female embroiderers, and how a 19th century replica made no such error
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Theatre Review: Blood Knot, Orange Tree Richmond-upon-Thames
Athol Fugard's explosive family drama resonates in the era of Black Lives Matter
Excellent: Kalungi Ssebandeke and Nathan McMullen
[Richard Hubert Smith]
MIK SABIERS revels in a band that ploughs an idiosyncratic furrow of expletive laden, guitar-driven alt rock
ANDY HEDGECOCK, MARIA DUARTE and ANGUS REID review Synthetic Sincerity, Our Hero, Balthazar, Heartstopper Forever, and A Year In London
The bard invites readers to a gig, raps for Clacton, and lays out the Burnham-Hurzeler conundrum
RON JACOBS recommends an important book that enhances the oppositional theories put forth by Fanon and, in doing so, remakes psychology itself
JAN WOOLF relishes an extensive history of our long relationship to trees in Britain that underlines the current emergency
DIANE WATT argues that while evidence of sex is not there, a 16th‑century lesbian poet could be Scotland’s answer to Gentleman Jack
SOUTH Africa, 1961. Morrie Pietersen (Nathan McMullen) and his half-brother Zach (Kalungi Ssebandeke) live together in the putrid shanty town of Korsten, Port Elizabeth.
Morrie, light-skinned and bookish, dreams of a two-man farm in one of the “blank spaces” on the map while Zach, illiterate and weathered from working long hours in menial jobs, seeks only the company of women and old memories of nights on the town.
It’s a story that in Athol Fugard’s play pits the “blood knot” against the politics of colourism — prejudice or discrimination against individuals with a dark skin tone among people of the same ethnic or racial group — as this complex family drama unfolds.
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