PAUL DONOVAN is chilled by the contemporary resonance of Harper Lee’s coming of age tale amidst racism and white supremacy in this excellent production
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Elegant attack on a complex communist
A new book on the controversial Spanish communist leader Santiago Carrillo is a well-crafted hatchet job. But it doesn’t tell the whole story, says Tom Sibley
GEOFF BOTTOMS recommends the unashamedly light-hearted escapism on offer in this stage version of the 1963 film
Full of mysterious religious references and radical sound design, the Scottish duo’s new offering is candidate for album of the year, suggests SIMON DUFF
MARY CONWAY revels in a powerful reminder that human lives are not defined by physical perfection
PAUL DONOVAN recommends the fine performances in this account of the pre-war meeting between the US president and the British king
TECLYN AROD relishes an intimate celebration of jazz improvisation that mixes local and national musicians
The Last Stalinist: The Life of Santiago Carrillo, by Paul Preston (Harper Collins, £30)
In his early 20s Santiago Carrillo (1915-2012) was a leading figure in the Spanish civil war and from 1960-82 general secretary of the Communist Party of Spain (PCE). From the 1960s he became a powerful advocate of Eurocommunism and increasingly critical of the Soviet Union and the world communist movement.
On the face of it, then, plenty of meat for a biographer to chew on. With his deserved reputation as an outstanding historian and self-confessed man of the left, Paul Preston, who knew Carrillo, would seem to be the ideal person to tell that story.
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