Coffee-Table Notes

Terry Hands – theatre director Born January 9, 1941; died February 4, 2020 Terry Hands, who has died aged 79, was a theatre director whose masterly interpretations of Shakespeare helped define their era. He also led three major theatrical institutions that changed the map of British theatre. From Liverpool’s Everyman Theatre, which Hands co-founded, through to the Royal Shakespeare Company and Theatr Clwyd, Mold, Hands brought classics to life over half a century, investing a baroque richness into the material.   If Hands sometimes didn’t get as much high-profile attention as his contemporaries, his productions made waves nevertheless. This was the case directing Alan Howard as assorted monarchs in Shakespeare’s seven-hour history cycle, casting Anthony Sher in the title roles of Richard III and Christopher Marlowe’s Tamburlaine the Great, and winning best director awards, both for the latter and his production of Cyrano de Bergerac starring Derek Jacobi as Cyrano and Sine

Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh Four stars In 2014, a Birmingham school was accused of promoting Islamist propaganda in an attempt to radicalise its high-achieving students. As was eventually proven in court following national tabloid hysteria, such inflammatory notions were in fact complete hokum, and any ideology being promoted was more likely that propagated by government. While the fall-out of the damage done prevails, it remains vital that what happened is shouted from the rooftops. This is more than achieved here in this touring revival of Helen Monks and Matt Woodhead’s verbatim play for their LUNG company, presented here in co-production with Leeds Playhouse. Drawn from 200 hours of interviews, what could be a dry and dense affair is transformed in Woodhead’s production into an urgent dramatic dispatch from the frontline. As it gives voice to teachers and pupils caught in the crossfire as well as local councillors treading on eggshells, it lays bare how fake news can

Collective Gallery, Edinburgh until March 29 th Four stars Through the window from the inside of the Collective’s Hillside gallery you can see the wall surrounding the venue’s buildings. In the context of Sulaïman Majali’s constructed interior for this latest edition of the Collective’s Satellites programme for developing artists, it’s easy to think of biblical Jericho, 1970s Berlin, the Gaza Strip or Trump’s Mexican fantasy. Inside, Majali draws from ideas of diaspora and imperialism in the wake of racist graffiti on a mosque in Cumbernauld that gives the show its title. A row of four grey/black plastic bucket seats are lined up opposite a microphone stand beside a stage monitor in the corner. The monitor broadcasts a looped collage of anthropologically-inclined field recording fragments that move from hushed mantras to electronic hums and heart-beat percussion. The powerfully named ‘though we know the dream is built from the collateral of our minds and the shrapnel tha