Tribune – Comment, news and reviews from Britain's democratic left

Neil Young makes some intriguing discoveries in at the sixth IndieLisboa film festival in Portugal

In this crazy world of political chicanery, with politicians saying sorry for nicking taxpayers’ money and the news media getting orgasmic satisfaction from a gift of a story, for relief I have turned to another siphon of public money, the BBC.

Restoration and Revolution in Britain: A Political History of the Era of Charles II and the Glorious Revolution
by Gary S De Krey
Palgrave Macmillan, £21.99

Our abiding impression of the Restoration of King Charles II is of the Merry Monarch, his orange-selling actress mistress Nell Gwyn, lots of royal rumpy pumpy, lots of illegitimate children – the right royal bastards – who all ended up as the Duke or Duchess of Somewhereorother and a deliriously happy population of plebs utterly delighted to see the back of Oliver Cromwell and his dour, Puritanical Commonwealth. My, how they cheered to have a king back on the throne! And our abiding impression of the Glorious Revolution of 1688 is of a bloodless, seamless and civilised way of settling the succession.

Frames of War by Judith Butler
Verso, £14.99

Frames of War is a searching examination of the intellectual frameworks informing the double standards which pervade contemporary political, journalistic and academic discourses on the violence of the “war on terror”.

Amongst Friends
Hampstead Theatre, London

Why does the Hampstead Theatre have such a bad reputation with critics? Every time this venue – which is actually in Swiss Cottage – puts on a new play, the reaction from reviewers is ferocious: “dud” is the polite word for almost every new play here. And critics openly scoff that no one reads the scripts before they are put on stage. It’s only a matter of time before someone suggests renaming the venue the “Turkey Theatre Company.”

The End of Food: The Coming Crisis in the World Food Industry by Paul Roberts
Bloomsbury, £8.99

In his famous treatise of 1798, An Essay on the Principle of Population, the Anglican clergyman and political economist Thomas Robert Malthus argued that the human population of this planet would always be “checked” – his polite euphemism for “starved” – by the failure of food supplies to keep pace with the growth of population.

Anthony and the Johnsons
Hammersmith Apollo, London

The right warm-up act can add much to a sense of occasion. This evening’s choice of muse and dancer Johanna Constantine, who is part Edward Scissorhands and part Miss Haversham, simply adds to the impatience of a celebrity-packed audience desperate to witness for themselves one of pop’s most enigmatic performers: Mercury Prize-winner Anthony Hegarty and his band, the Johnsons.

Stephan & Franciszka Themerson
Lightbox, Tate Britain, London

While the idea of experimental films is likely to elicit responses ranging from eager anticipation to ennui and confusion, artists who question assumptions about the nature of the medium and how it can be an expressive art form in its own right can produce highly rewarding work. Such is the case with the three short films by Stephan and Franciszka Themerson, which are currently showing at Lightbox, a space dedicated to artists’ film and video – one of the more exciting excursions into the realm of the experimental – at Tate Britain.