MIK SABIERS revels in a band that ploughs an idiosyncratic furrow of expletive laden, guitar-driven alt rock
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Hedwig and the Angry Inch
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
JAN WOOLF relishes an extensive history of our long relationship to trees in Britain that underlines the current emergency
DIANE WATT argues that while evidence of sex is not there, a 16th‑century lesbian poet could be Scotland’s answer to Gentleman Jack
KEITH RICHMOND relishes a superbly conceived modern version of Aeschylus’ drama of murderous family succession
Hedwig and the Angry Inch
Leeds Playhouse & HOME Manchester
IT’S entrance worthy of a megastar. Hedwig (RuPaul’s Drag Race UK contestant Divina De Campo) struts through the audience, whooping up applause, before taking to the stage to sing the Bowie-influenced Tear Me Down; her stars and stripes cape opened to reveal the slogan “gender is a construct.”
It’s not the only thing that’s a construct. In a show that’s described as being a “musical, a cabaret and a stream of consciousness,” it soon transpires that Hedwig is a megastar only in her head. She plays in a scuzzy northern working men’s club while her former mentee Tommy Gnosis, whose hits she co-wrote, performs to a packed Roundhay Park.
The cult show, written by John Cameron Mitchell and Stephen Trask, tells how she arrived at this point in a series of sketchy flashbacks. Born in communist East Berlin before moving to Kansas, she presents herself as the missing link between east and west, and an alternative to binary divisions due to a botched gender reassignment operation.
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