CHRIS SEARLE recommends a work of love and deep admiration for a great musician
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Monster treat for children of all ages
SIMON PARSONS sees an excellent stage version of a classic book
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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
JAMIE BRITTON recommends this fine analysis of the architectural, ecological and infrastructural destruction of the Gaza Strip
A Monster Calls
Old Vic, London
PATRICK NESS’S award-winning children’s novel about 13-year-old Conor, who comes to terms with his mother’s terminal cancer through the creation of a fantasy monster, is powerfully emotive material. Following in the wake of a visually spectacular 2016 film, any theatre adaptation is faced with a challenge and it's one that this production certainly meets.
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