Ben Brooker

Paul Roberts’s The Impulse Society is the latest entry in a now familiar subtype of polemic: that of the society in decline, the symptoms of which run the gamut of Western post-industrialist ills from childhood obesity to the meltdown of global economic markets, and the syndrome of which is, at root, advanced capitalism. The lineage can be traced back through, among many others, Chris Hedges’ ... (read more)

A play in which two characters metaphorise the complex relationship between China and Australia does not sound very promising. We have seen this sort of thing before, not always happily – in the blue corner a lovably cantankerous professor representing ‘science’, in the red corner a cheery troglodyte who is ‘faith’ incarnate, and so on and on into the worst dinner party you have never be ... (read more)

Adapted and directed by Peter Brook in conjunction with Hélène Estienne and Franck Krawczyk, The Suit was first staged in a French-language version (Le Costume) in 1999. In English, fifteen years on, and with significant changes having been made (including the replacement of recorded music with a live trio), The Suit remains vitally alive, showing none of the signs of the lethal malaise Brook de ... (read more)