CHRIS SEARLE recommends a work of love and deep admiration for a great musician
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Laibach and think of North Korea
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
I'VE seen, and taken part in, some wonderful events in the last 12 months but for me there is only one Gig Of The Year.
It’s not just Gig of the Year, it’s Film of the Year and Surreal Cultural Event/Collision of the Year too and it happened in Pyongyang four months ago. Best of all, you can watch it on BBC iPlayer until January 6.
And, comrades, in the spirit of both Laibach and North Korea, I will go as far as to declare NOT watching it to be a counterrevolutionary act. Storyville: When Rock Arrived In North Korea (Storyville, BBC4) is absolutely wonderful.
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