Just over three years after the Hillsborough Disaster the reigning champions met in the cup semi-final against a smaller team in a stadium which was disastrously unfit for the crowds expected on the day. The teams on this occasion were [...]
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I have been a fan of Doctor Who since the first episode, throughout that time I do not recall a more obvious political allegory than the recent 'Zygon Invasion/Zygon Inversion' two-parter. The story (fans can skip two paragraphs) begins with the [...]
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The Last Poets – Band on the Wall 21/07/15 The Last Poets have long been regarded as the forefathers of Hip Hop. After forming on Malcolm X’s birthday in 1968, they became the credible soundtrack to the burgeoning Black Power movement [...]
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John Grindrod, Concretopia – a Journey round the rebuilding of post-war Britain (Old Street, 2013). Concretopia is almost certainly the first history of the post-war modernist project in British cities and towns, and it is without doubt the first to try [...]
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Light shining in Buckinghamshire, a play by Caryl Churchill is set at the time of the Civil War in 17th century England, when the world was turned upside down as people fought for a different way to live and to put [...]
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Peter Kennard: Unofficial War Artist at the Imperial War Museum, London, until 30 May 2016. Most people who have been active politically on the left will be familiar with the striking simple graphics and photomontage of Peter Kennard. They have featured [...]
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Having faced outrageous neglect in the hands of the British art establishment before and after his death in 1987, Renato Guttuso: Painter of Modern Life at the Estorick Collection in London is a welcome retrospective of a fascinating figure of [...]
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Based on the book "The Gangs of Manchester" by Andrew Davies the play describes the Scuttler gang phenomenon of late Victorian Ancoats in Manchester. The area of Ancoats - on the fringes of Manchester's city centre - described by its 21st [...]
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At 464 pages you might decide to pass on reading The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes. This would be a mistake. This is a gargantuan work but easily digestible in parts with each chapter standing on its own [...]
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A month ago Western Australian Opera opted to withdraw performances of Carmen at the Opera House in Sydney because they feared that the setting of Georges Bizet’s opera in a cigarette factory might clash with the opera company’s sponsorship by [...]
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