CHRIS SEARLE recommends a work of love and deep admiration for a great musician
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Transform 19, Leeds citywide
Transform 19, Leeds
Issues of gender, identity, state repression and digital surveillance figured large in a major festival of experimental theatre and dance
Absurdist: bYOB
[JMA Photography]
KENNY MacASKILL relishes a fictionalised account of the life and death of the principled Irish anti-colonialist, executed for betraying his English imperial masters
FIONA O’CONNOR admires an ambitious first novel that loosens South Africa’s rainbow collective to examine the racial tensions within
Aussie mining corporation murder, Liverpudlian ex-cop amnesia, a naive vigilante tries to reset capitalism, and the riddle of the dead psychoanalyst
SYLVIA HIKINS is persuaded by an entertaining play that the true miracle of Lourdes would be for attitudes toward disability to change
JAMIE BRITTON recommends this fine analysis of the architectural, ecological and infrastructural destruction of the Gaza Strip
OVER its two-week run, Transform hosted groups from all over the world to provide their perspectives on some big global themes.
One is a perceived “crisis of masculinity” and different notions of it are touched upon in bYOB, a new piece from Britain’s 70/30 Split. It starts chillingly, with a man in black combat gear silently outstaring the audience.
But before long matters turns increasingly absurd. The cast of four variously go on to reference the Milk Tray Man, the rose petals in American Beauty and the giant teddy bears of Jeff Koons while reappropriating morris dancing, military training and slumber parties in what’s a humorous yet pointed piece exploring the need to belong and the dangers of this being misdirected.
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