STEPHANIE BROWN draws attention to the hidden labour of the female embroiderers, and how a 19th century replica made no such error
IN FOR the Sake of Argument, members of a combative debating club held in a rundown pub lay into well-worn issues.
They do so merely for the sake of winning the argument and validating their own articulacy, and in charge is Eleanor (Ashleigh Cole), a fervent believer in rational disputation and an unflinching advocate for the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Her writings persuaded a young man — an unlikely recruit — to sign up for the British army to overthrow Saddam Hussein and his tragic death in an IED blast leads his grieving mother to search out the woman whose words drove him to enlist.
ALAN MORRISON recommends a consummate, heart-warming collection about a working-class upbringing in the industrial north-east
SIMON PARSONS applauds an artist who rescues and rehumanises stories of women, the victims of violence, from a feminist perspective
MARY CONWAY becomes impatient with the intellectual self-indulgence of Tom Stoppard in a production that is, nevertheless, total class
GORDON PARSONS is blown away by a superb production of Rostand’s comedy of verbal panache and swordmanship


