The shipyard painter, political activist and razor-sharp cartoonist Bob Starrett has just written a new book The Way I See It on his eventful life and times. Below we reprint one of his stories and review an essential read
ENO's production of La Boheme is a triumph,
Star critics cherry-pick some of the best on offer in the weeks to come
Cambridge Exhibition
The Search For Immortality: Tomb Treasures Of Han China
Fitzwilliam Museum
Trumpington Street
May 5-November 11
Over 350 treasures in jade, gold, silver, bronze and ceramics reveal the hidden world of China’s 2,000-year-old royal tombs in this exhibition, the largest of ancient royal treasures ever to travel outside China. It features the spectacular tombs of two rival power factions during the Han Dynasty — the Han imperial family in the northern “cradle” of Chinese history and the kingdom of Nanyue in the south. Protected by clay guardians and filled with jade and gold, the tombs were palaces fit for “immortals” and each was a symbol of power and majesty, designed so its owner could “live” again in eternity — in the same luxury they enjoyed in life.
www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk
London Theatre
Posh
Duhe Of York’s Theatre, WC2
In an oak-panelled room at Oxford University, 10 young men with cut-glass vowels and deep pockets are meeting, intent on restoring their right to rule. Members of an elite student dining society, the Riot Club, they are bunkering down for a wild night of debauchery, decadence, bloody good wine — and to plan a revolution. That’s the scenario of Laura Wade’s satire first seen at the Royal Court theatre (pictured) and now in the West End where no doubt members of the Bullingdon Club will turn up to check whether art’s imitating life. Recommended.
www.theatreboxoffice.org/duke-of-yorks
Salford Visual arts
Albert Adams Incarceration
Working Class Movement Library, The Crescent. Until June 29. Free
The Burden
Clifford Whitworth Library
The Crescent. Free. Until July 1
Albert Adams was a gifted Expressionist painter and printmaker and in these two linked exhibitions the University of Salford explores Adams’s remarkable body of work. Incarceration highlights his response to acts of political oppression such as the imprisonment of political prisoners on Robben Island. and recent atrocities, ranging from Darfur to Abu Ghraib. The Burden is an overview of Adams’s life and career and his exploration of his own sense of identity. As well as paintings and prints, the exhibition features African and Asian artworks collected by Adams as well as studio artifacts and archive material.
London Film festival
Medianeras/Absent/Chinese Takeaway
Ritzy Picturehouse, SW2
May 5-6
Argentina is one of the powerhouses of Latin American cinema and the trio of films in this mini-festival showcases some of the best recent releases from that country. Medianeras is a romantic comedy where boy fails to meet girl across the crowded cityscape of 21st-century Buenos Aires, Absent is an enigmatic gay drama of lust, guilt and repression and Chinese Take-Away tells the tale of a malcontent whose life is abruptly transformed
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