CHRIS SEARLE recommends a work of love and deep admiration for a great musician
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Arts ahead
The courage to resist, from WWI pacifists to civil rights activists in America's Deep South
TIME HAS COME: Detail from Ralph Griffin’s Eagle (1988), part of the We Will Walk exhibition
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
WITH This Evil Thing, Michael Mears has created a mesmerising drama on the brave struggles of pacifists during the first world war.
This talented — and, in lockdown, amazingly resourceful — writer and actor filmed the whole thing in his flat. His play — in which Mears plays 52 roles — runs at 90 minutes. He has performed it more than 100 times in Britain and the US but has now produced a lockdown version on his phone.
“Lockdown” is perhaps appropriate because, as Mears says,“Just over 100 years ago, British conscientious objectors were locked down in this country against their will because of the ‘virus’ it was feared they were spreading — the virus of pacifism and anti-militarism.”
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