Are ‘Black Out’ performances really the answer to British theatre’s race problem?
Can an audience change the meaning of a play? It’s a question US playwright Jeremy O Harris, lauded as “one of the most exciting new voices of…
Black Lives Matter leaders accused of using $6m of donations to buy luxury mansion
The leaders of Black Lives Matter (BLM) allegedly used $6 million in donations to buy a luxury California mansion, as more questions are raised about how the…
Aaron Sorkin’s revelatory adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird blazingly captures the zeitgeist
Put simply, we may be rooting for him, but, in fact, he too is in the dock. What value is a noble-minded faith in “the system”, if…
Don’t promote Black Lives Matter to pupils, teachers told, in crackdown on politics in the classroom
Officials at the DfE started drawing up new guidance for schools on how to uphold political impartiality last spring in the wake of the Israel-Gaza conflict. Ministers…
Teachers alone cannot address the complexities of race
‘Show a people as one thing, as only one thing, over and over again, and that is what they become,” said the celebrated author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie…
Farewell to Betty Davis, the thrilling, sexy and criminally overlooked first lady of funk
Betty Davis has died, aged 77, and the world just got a little less funky. By rights, she should be a legend. Davis was a funk powerhouse…
Nelson and Drake unchained from government review of art linked to slavery
A probe of government-owned artworks has been paused, after it emerged that pieces depicting the victories of Admiral Lord Nelson and Sir Francis Drake were listed “under…
Boris Johnson has utterly failed to back up his anti-woke rhetoric with action
One of the great things about a country with separation of powers is that the government cannot order a court what to do. Yet what both the…
George Osborne told: You’d better hope protesters don’t come for Elgin Marbles, after he backs ‘Colston four’
They opted for a jury trial, claiming the statue was itself a hate crime and it was therefore not a criminal offence to remove it. Mr Osborne’s…
In defence of the Colston jury
The acquittals of those charged with tearing down the statue of Edward Colston have been characterised as an attack on the rule of law. It was nothing…
‘We’ve no intention of removing anything from display’
Yet, for Finaldi, although providing context about the source of its sitter’s wealth is interesting, it is “not necessarily the most important thing to say” about the…
Edward Colston to be erased from the last school in Bristol bearing his name
The last school in Bristol to bear Edward Colston’s name has decided to change its moniker, saying he would “forever be associated” with slavery. Colston’s School, which…
The Wiz, Hope Mill Theatre, review: if ever a wonderful show there was…
In 1974 came the premiere, in Baltimore, Maryland, of The Wiz, a new stage musical based upon L Frank Baum’s beloved children’s novel The Wonderful Wizard of…
Death of England: Face to Face, review: raw lockdown drama shines light on the politics of identity
What’s in a face? Quite a lot when you are convinced that your mixed-race daughter has similar features to her racist Engerland-braying grandad. “Alan Fletcher, with his…