CHRIS SEARLE recommends a work of love and deep admiration for a great musician
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It's good to talk
SIMON PARSONS recommends an acute exploration of the negatives of non-communication
Not Talking at the Arcola Theatre. David Horovitch (James) Laurence Walker (Mark)
[Lidia Crisafulli]
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
JAMIE BRITTON recommends this fine analysis of the architectural, ecological and infrastructural destruction of the Gaza Strip
Not Talking
Arcola Theatre, London
PREVIOUSLY performed as a radio drama, Mike Bartlett's first play for the stage is a portent of the playwright's notable career.
Director James Hillier has his cast of four, ageing married couple James and Lucy and young squaddies Mark and Amanda, interweave their interlocking monologues on a stripped-down thrust stage.
They are linked by their inability to talk to one another about life-shaping events — incidents and decisions that potentially could bond the couples trigger breakdown they are unable to share.
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