CHRIS SEARLE recommends a work of love and deep admiration for a great musician
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‘The nearest thing English people have to a religion’
SUSAN DARLINGTON recommends a cautionary tale marking the 70th anniversary of the NHS
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
Get Well Soon
Wetherby Whaler, Guiseley/Touring
“WHAT'S the NHS ever done for us?” asks a character at the start of Get Well Soon.
The answer, referencing Monty Python’s sketch about the Romans, is everything from heart transplants, test-tube babies, Aids awareness campaigns and a slot at the London 2012 Olympics opening ceremony.
That roll call of achievements is celebrated in Ged Cooper’s cautionary tale for Mikron Theatre, coinciding with the service’s 70th anniversary. Whether it will survive to see its next milestone birthday is never far from the surface of this gently comedic yet pointed piece of theatre with music.
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