A glimpse into the lives of extraordinary ordinary Iraqis
During the 1991 Gulf War Maysoon Pachachi was in London and recalls that “watching the news, I never saw one ordinary Iraqi person on screen. They were absent.”
Sudan mystery puts racism in the spotlight
Goodbye Julia Is perfect proof that the personal is political.
‘How was my father killed?’, a mother is asked
A teacher asks his young class what what they should model today. A tank, suggests one. A rifle, says another. “No,” responds the teacher, “I don’t like objects of war.”
The Douala seamstress who’s the real action hero
You want an action movie? Forget Superman or Wonder Woman. Watch Mambar Pierrette.
Like mixing a movie on the Titanic
It could have been bad taste to make a film about making a film at the time of the cataclysmic 2020 chemical explosion in Beirut that killed 218, injured 7,000, caused $15 billion property damage, and made about 300,000 people homeless.
Nine vision of hell in Iran - and elsewhere
Terrestrial Verses is a vivid depiction of what happens when bureaucrats and managers have arbitrary power over individuals. It is like nine visions of personal hell.
When the Butterfly bites
It starts with a production of Puccini’s Madam Butterfly more than a century ago: the handsome visiting white US military officer and the pliant, Asian doll-woman.
The Syrian refugees and the semi-derelict pub
The Old Oak is a film about what happens when Syrian refugees move into a run-down, dead-on-its-feet north-east English town.
Boy to girl, devout follower to assassin: the Nathuram Godse story
So, Mahatma Gandhi was murdered because his assassin was brought up as a girl to appease the Gods and was symbolically killing the father who had metaphorically castrated him?
Life and death in a container on the move
Sorry We Didn't Die at Sea is uncategorisable but funny and entertaining.
Rough life in an African illiberal democracy
Bobi Wine: Ghetto President pitches you face-to-face with the rough and tumble of Uganda’s political and election battles as pop star-turned-MP Robert Kyagulanyi takes on the country’s 36-year dictatorship.
Zia Ahmed takes a class blast at repression in Britain
Brassic FM is a two-barrel blast at the authorities trying to police aspects of working-class British cultural life.
Celebrating the Peckham-Lagos connection
Lagos Peckham Repeat: Pilgrimage to the Lakes is full of energy, humour and invention - just like the thousands of Nigerians in the south London district of Peckham, part of 12,000 Nigerians in the borough of Southwark.
Word-Play walks the talk
Extraordinarily, while Rabiah Hussain was writing her new play, a brain tumour attacked her ability to communicate. Extraordinary, because Word-Play is about language.
Is it to be African American or Critical Whiteness Studies?
Kwame Kwei-Armah has compared living with his Grenada-born parents in Britain to existing with two types of theatre: he would be serving rum to his father and his pals, while his mother was hosting church meetings in the living-room. His new play is also like two types of theatre.
Playlists light the blue touch paper in a political Hong Kong romcom
A Playlist for the Revolution at the Bush Theatre is a blast.
Photography exhibition fit for African monarchs
From the moment you enter A World In Common: Contemporary African Photography, you know you’re in for something a little different.
British-Asian cricket prodigy finds himself on a sticky wicket
The recent blistering report on racism, sexism and elitism in English cricket reinforces Duck’s Arcola Theatre depiction of the camouflaged prejudice behind the crushing of a British Muslim schoolboy’s prodigious sporting talent.
Violent fathers and Peruvian guerrillas
First, let’s hear it for small London theatres and their intimate treasures.
Walking while Black, and other refugee memories
A neighbour’s curtain twitches when the unknown Black man walks past. Minutes later the police turn up. They ask what he’s doing and take his name and address.