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
War With the Newts
Summerhall Basement
Edinburgh
Through a plastic curtain we are ushered in one by one for processing — a brief questioning, a torch flashed in our eyes, wrist stamped then guided by an overly friendly crew member to our seats, an orange crate, in the claustrophobic hull of Captain Von Toch’s ship.
We are greeted by the digital avatars of the nebulous yet nefarious organisation “The Syndicate” who introduce a series of “entertainment protocols” narrating how we have arrived at the present war with the newts.
Tyrell Jones’s timely adaptation of Karel Capek’s 1936 novel, a surreal yet savage satire on the depredations of global capitalism and the rise of fascism, brings the polysemic allegory to the post-Brexit, global-warming scorched present.
PETER MASON applauds a stage version of Le Carre’s novel that questions what ordinary people have to gain from high-level governmental spying
ANDY HEDGECOCK, MARIA DUARTE and ANGUS REID review The Six Billion Dollar Man, Avatar: Fire and Ash, Goodbye June, and Super Elfkins
WILL STONE witnesses an experimental piano concerto inspired by the work of a young Jewish victim of the Nazis
MOLLY DHLAMINI welcomes a Pan-Africanist and Marxist manifesto that charts a path for Africa’s resurgence


