John Shand Posts

September 11, 2018 / Concert Reviews - Archive

Riverside Theatre, September 3 7/5/10 Freedom has no greater expression than music. African Americans have largely defined popular music’s last 100 years by voicing their post-slavery resilience, and, amid countless examples, explosions of musical culture occurred as the Irish survived English oppression and non-white South Africans survived apartheid. Uyghur musical…

September 8, 2018 / Theatre Reviews - Archive

Playhouse, August 31, until September 28 6.5/10 At their best the rhymes come fizzing and spitting at you, the wit sizzling as writer Justin Fleming throws fat on Moliere’s fire. At other times the work feels more laboured, as if Moliere’s satire and Fleming’s meter, rhymes and token modernity have…

September 7, 2018 / Features - Archive

They’re the lucky ones. Australia’s Uyghurs are still able to celebrate their ancient culture in music and dance. Their compatriots in China’s north-west Xinjiang province, meanwhile, are ever more widely reported as being arrested without charge, sent to political “re-education” camps, or simply disappearing altogether. Such allegations are denied by…