Mubeen Blogs

Summerhall, Edinburgh Fadi Murad’s unconventional drama is a collage structured with the free-form imagination of a poet Last year, a group of Scottish producers staged a four-day mini festival called Welcome to the Fringe, Palestine . One of the excerpts was a scratch performance by Fadi Murad, which now returns as a full-length show. It is not a conventional drama. Rather, Come Back Home is structured with the free-ranging imagination of a poet, an impressionistic collage that resists straightforward interpretation. Murad’s theme is one of loss and the pull of home, focusing in particular on the death of his mother in a car accident when he was nine. He speaks touchingly from a child’s perspective of what it meant to lose the nurturer in his life, the one he turned to in just such a moment of distress. And he shares video footage of his younger self singing Mad World by Tears for Fears at her memorial. It is as cute as it is sad. At Summerhall, Edinburgh , until 31 August All our Ed...

The writer – who was also shortlisted in 2023 – has won the prize for her book When There Are Wolves Again, a speculative work of eco-fiction set in near-future Britain A novel about rewilding and climate activism in Britain has been named this year’s winner of the Arthur C Clarke award for science fiction. When There Are Wolves Again by EJ Swift is an “ambitious study in the power of long-term hope in the face of climate breakdown”, said the award’s director, Tom Hunter. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/Sd752QT

Ángel Aguirre indicted in case that rocked Mexico and became symbol of its brutal cartel violence The former governor of Guerrero state in Mexico has been formally charged over his alleged involvement in the disappearance of 43 students in 2014, a case that has become a symbol of the country’s brutal cartel violence and government impunity. Ángel Aguirre, who was arrested last week , is accused of forced disappearance and obstruction of justice for ordering the destruction of surveillance tapes that may have shed light on what happened to the students from the Ayotzinapa teacher training college on the night of 26 September 2014. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/0Nxe6mA

Dawn of the Hundred may have ‘devalued’ the competition, but events at New Road show there is still life in county cricket The Metro Bank One-Day Cup has been a bit of a sleeper hit this summer. Words such as “devalued” and “second tier” have followed the tournament since the dawn of the Hundred in 2021 but there has been a quiet resurgence of late. The prolonged dry spell has provided certainty and pleasant conditions. But the big one has been the Hundred’s tractor beam slightly easing. Essentially, the full availability of England players – plus one extra overseas spot per franchise – has lessened the strain on county 50-over squads and upped their quality a touch. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/4yfuWHb

Underbelly, Bristo Square, Edinburgh Audience members are invited to examine what they will do with their lives in this earnest shared thought experiment If you could hold the years of your life in your hands like coins, would you choose to spend them differently? This is the thoughtful, earnest tone of Ten Ways to Die Happy, an existential but somewhat formulaic Italian production (performed here in English) created by Emanuele Aldrovandi and Jacopo Giacomoni. In this gentle gameshow, we are asked not just to consider how we would use the finite time we have, but to put this thought experiment into practice. Eight people are plucked at random from the audience. My number is called, so I don a white robe, choose a new name for my new life, and take a seat on stage. Perla Ambrosini is our ethereal host, standing in fabric armour in a shallow pool of water. Each of us has a tray of flowers that we throw into the pool, every plastic bud representing the “energy” available to invest in wor...

Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh With the air of a hungover postmortem, Richardson gives a head-spinning account of an encounter with an older comedian If you’re partial to a bit of gossip and scandal, Harriet Richardson is your girl. In this gloriously juicy debut hour, she dishes the dirt on the DMs she received from an older comedian and the intense, utterly absorbing events that followed. Yes, she found his eBay account. And yes, she spent six months tracking him down on a dating app only to play his profile song hundreds of times. But what else is a girl driven by obsession supposed to do? We meet Richardson, who until now has worked primarily as a performance artist, all smiles and ready to share. She takes us back to the creation of her 2024 viral piece 100 Dates , in which she spent Valentine’s Day online speed-dating in an attempt to analyse her relationship with infatuation and connection. The comedian in question used the project as the opening line of his first message to her...

Astronomers say viewing conditions promising for this year’s shower, and 50 to 100 meteors an hour may be visible The Perseid summer light show is back, and viewing conditions are especially promising across the northern hemisphere. The meteor shower’s is expected to peak on Wednesday night into Thursday morning, and coincides with a total solar eclipse across Spain, Iceland and Greenland and a six-planet parade – though the best time to view the fireballs will come after totality. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/zYXwFsn