GORDON PARSONS appreciates fine performances and a feel for ambiguity, but misses the music of the dialogue
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Martin Figura - Sand
Edited by JODY PORTER
DOUGLAS FIELD relishes the hard-boiled language, satire and humour of the third and last of the Harlem trilogy
STEPHANIE BROWN draws attention to the hidden labour of the female embroiderers, and how a 19th century replica made no such error
MIK SABIERS revels in a band that ploughs an idiosyncratic furrow of expletive laden, guitar-driven alt rock
ANDY HEDGECOCK, MARIA DUARTE and ANGUS REID review Synthetic Sincerity, Our Hero, Balthazar, Heartstopper Forever, and A Year In London
The bard invites readers to a gig, raps for Clacton, and lays out the Burnham-Hurzeler conundrum
RON JACOBS recommends an important book that enhances the oppositional theories put forth by Fanon and, in doing so, remakes psychology itself
Sand
Martin Figura
A little Midlands new town with nothing left
to make or do, or mountains to speak of
and no-one passing through. The bypass
exit sign does not say An Historic Market Town.
No stately home, cathedral, cobbled streets,
no green or pond, no ducks, no honey-stoned
second homes; just overspill without blue
plaques. The town hall is an office block.
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