Category: Colonialism
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Empire: The Company That Became a Country
The political economy of the British Empire. Finance capital, informal empire, administrative afterlife.
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Empire: Pressure, Not Providence
The political economy of European Empire. Pressure and invention rather than character and event. Portugal, Spain, Holland and England.
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Sexy Greedy: Caryl Churchill, the City Comedy, and the World Big Bang Made
Serious Money: A deep dive into an essential English drama
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What’s the Big Idea
A list of thinkers whose ideas do most to inform this blog.
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The Stuff of Dreams and Exploitation: The White Marble Lie
In which we confront the ugly truth that lies beneath.
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The Stuff of Dreams and Exploitation: From Lapis Lazuli to Louis Vuitton
In which we trace the history of luxury.
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The Line and the Circle
Two formal languages run through the whole of British architectural history, and the tension between them is the engine of everything worth discussing.
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The Gift at the Theatre Royal Stratford East review ***
The Gift Theatre Royal Stratford East, 8th February 2020 Another in the lengthening list of contemporary plays where the reach of ambition exceeds the grasp of execution. Janice Okoh has set her sights on “imperialism, cross-racial adoption, cultural appropriation … and tea” with her “outrageous” play set firstly, in Victorian…
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Three Sisters at the National Theatre review ***
Three Sisters National Theatre Lyttleton, 9th December 2019 Opportunity partially missed I am afraid. Inua Ellams has come up with a brilliant idea by transporting Chekhov to 1960s Nigeria, specifically during the Biafaran Civil War. Yet his urge to educate and contextualise leaves the dialogue heavy on exposition. And, in…
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A Doll’s House at the Lyric Hammersmith review *****
A Doll’s House Lyric Hammersmith, 18th September 2019 You can never have too much Nora. After Samuel Adamson’s gender fluid Wife at the Kiln, and this adaptation from Tanika Gupta set in colonial India, the Tourist has the 3 for the price of 1, Glasgow Citizens, radical re-working from Steff…
At Home He Feels Like A Tourist 