Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

Hilarity with heart

Plus: a crisp, quirky Ibsen adaptation underminded by a silly ending

issue 11 May 2019

Small Island, based on Andrea Levy’s novel about Jamaican migrants in Britain, feels like the world’s longest book review. We meet Hortense, a priggish school teacher, and her cool, handsome boyfriend who survive on a pittance in the Caribbean. Then we skip back to Hortense’s childhood in a house dominated by a bullying preacher who forbids conversations at mealtime.

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