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Reviews round-up

reviews of RAR and an event

If you don’t know Hockney this Tate Britian exhibition is your chance to start

Tate Britain’s huge retrospective on David Hockney that’s just opened shows the artist’s great skill of reaching out to people using art, writes Alan Kenny

Certain Women promises us more than it provides

Certain Women features three women whose stories very slightly intertwine in a small US town.

Despite the curator, Russian artists shine in new exhibit

The Royal Academy’s revolutionary Russian art exhibition is impressive, but the working class is rarely seen as fully active within history

Poking fun at Egypt's rulers and refusing to be silenced

Anne Alexander looks at Tickling Giants, a documentary film about Egyptian satirist Bassem Youssef who refused to be a mouthpiece for the counter-revolution, just one of many award-winning films at the Human Rights Watch Film Festival in London next month

Shipped off and enslaved to build a new world of wealth

The remake of 1970s TV series Roots personalises the struggles that slaves faced and helps expose the roots of racism today, writes?Antony Hamilton

Denial—‘Take the gloves off and call it lying’

Director Mick Jackson told Tomáš Tengely-Evans about his film Denial, the David Irving case it dramatises and the issues it raises today

The Lower Depths shows a society that’s ready to burst

Arcola Theatre’s production of Maxim Gorky’s play captures the contradictions of pre-revolutionary Russia and the potential for change, writes Julie Sherry

The magnificent unknown bluesman—Hayes McMullan

This release ought to ensure McMullan’s rightful place among the better-known Delta greats such as Patton, Robert Johnson, Son House and Willie Brown.

Splinterlands—we need to fight to write a new ending

Also: This House at the Garrick Theatre

From punk to Trump—a compelling introspective

Gee Vaucher’s extensive body of work spanning 50 years reveals one of the best and most political collage artists of the century, writes?Jeff Jackson

Revolting takes aim at Tory privatisation and cuts

This sketch show is pitched as “satirising the state of the nation”.

Hedda Gabler exposes the societal pressure to conform

National Theatre’s contemporary translation of Henrik Ibsen’s play satisfies a taste for melodrama but many will prefer his early work, says?John Baker

The White King tries too much—and fails as a result

The White King is a dystopian family drama. It’s set in a world of great technological advances, but the mass of people are repressed into a peasant-like existence.

The Bronte sisters strove to be judged on their own terms

To Walk Invisible is a thoughtful TV drama but the turmoil and struggle of the time Charlotte, Emily and Anne wrote about doesn’t get a look in, says Sadie Robinson

There are better reads than 1919 on Britain’s year of revolution

The 1917 Russian Revolution was a flaring beacon of hope for working and oppressed people across the globe.

Chi-Raq—an entertaining but superficial look at gun violence in US

Spike Lee’s new film Chi-Raq takes a swipe at the gun industry and stereotypes of black people but it is not always clear cut, writes Moyra Samuels

Documentary The Council’s focus on cuts doesn’t go deep enough

The Council, a new three-part documentary, follows the experiences of workers at Scotland’s third largest council in Fife.

The ABC of Capitalism—it’s back to school for young and old with this exhibition

There are hard plastic chairs and work on the walls—but this is no ordinary classroom. The ABC of Capitalism is seriously good fun, writes Geoff Brown

John Pilger's film The Coming War On China exposes US brutality in Pacific Ocean

Veteran left wing filmmaker John Pilger turns the tables on US scaremongering about Chinese military expansion by exposing the imperialist history of the US in the Asia-Pacific region.