Posts by Sarah Birch
King Lear, Almeida Theatre, stage review: ‘Ramped-up, sexed-up take on the Shakespeare classic’
Yaël Farber’s adaptation keeps the audience ‘gripped throughout’
Read MoreUnravel, Barbican, exhibition review: ‘Expands our appreciation of textiles as art’
Protest and subversion are stand-out themes of a show that features 50 artists from around the world
Read MoreComing Unstuck, Joe Cullen, book review: ‘An object lesson in how to get out of a rut’
The first prose book by the man known as the Bard of Dalston is a ‘very personal foray into the undergrowth of Cool Britannia’
Read MoreOne Girl Began, Kate Murray-Browne, book review: ‘These women’s lives are all heroic in a small way’
The local author’s new novel explores the lives of three women at different junctures in Hackney’s history
Read MoreOne Last Song, Nathan Evans, book review: ‘A delicately oblique love story’
This debut novel by an accomplished poet and performer will have you ‘giggling while reaching for the tissues’
Read MoreThe Lost Library of Spitalfields Market, Greenhouse Theatre, stage review: ‘A seasonal fairy tale for all ages’
This Christmas play at the UK’s first zero-waste theatre is a ‘perfect antidote to hibernal chill’
Read More1984, Hackney Town Hall, stage review: ‘Timely reminder of just how thuggish servants of the people can be’
The borough’s municipal heart is a fitting place for this immersive take on Orwell’s famous novel
Read MoreHackney Scars, Eddie Plex, book review: ‘Local spirit of anarchic quirk’
Photographer and multimedia artist Plex offers up a ‘very personal interpretation’ of the borough
Read MoreThe Disappearance Boy, Neil Bartlett, book review: ‘Utterly compelling’
Bartlett’s tale of illusion and love ‘keeps the reader thoroughly engrossed’
Read MoreStreet Cries and Traders, Homerton Hospital, exhibition review: ‘Picturesque images of local life’
This selection of 13 images from the London Picture Archive are ‘well worth a peek’
Read Morewe are a group of people composed of who we are, Peer Gallery, exhibition review: ‘Sure to capture the imagination’
This new show in Hoxton explores the grassroots culture of collective work in Hackney in the 70s and 80s
Read MoreOsvaldo Licini: Rebellious Angel, Estorick Collection, exhibition review: ‘Playful, whimsical and very moving’
The first UK show dedicated to the 20th-century painter offers visitors a ‘flight of fancy’
Read MoreSam Hodge: Every Contact Leaves a Trace, 195 Mare Street, exhibition review: ‘Haunting prints that linger in the mind’
The local artist puts on a ‘captivating’ show inside Hackney’s second oldest home
Read MoreTales of the Suburbs, Justin David, book review: ‘Vivid storytelling full of sharp detail’
This novel ‘paints a picture of a journey away and back that many readers will recognise’
Read More‘Multi-layered and masterful’: Leaving Vietnam, Park Theatre – review
An enthralling one-man show, written and performed by Richard Vergette
Read More‘It was a revelation in a selfish, personal way’: Artist Jock McFadyen on how his own retrospective gave him a ‘hankering to mix and match’
The Royal Academician is showing his latest exhibition at his studio gallery in London Fields
Read MoreRare Hackney, Two More Years studio, exhibition review: ‘You won’t regret a visit’
Neil Martinson’s photographs of the borough, on display to raise money for the local food bank, show ‘a community on the move’
Read MoreCézanne: The EY Exhibition, Tate Modern, review: ‘A painter of nature’
More than 80 paintings make up the first major display of the artist’s work in London since the turn of the century
Read MoreAfter the Olympics, Tony Mak, book review: ‘Photographs that catch the fractured mood of this social cusp’
Tony Mak’s images show ‘how unharmonious profit-maximising urban design can be’
Read MoreChapter of Accidents: A Writer’s Memoir, Alexander Baron, book review: ‘Portrait of a man keen to be accepted but feeling himself apart’
Launched at Hackney Archives last month, these memoirs were said by the late novelist to ‘hold the key to his writing’
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