The Critic Magazine

24 February 2022

In the March issue of The Critic, the magazine of ideas for open-minded readers, Louise Perry gets to the truth about whether Covid laws really did require hospitals and care homes to ban loved ones from saying goodbye to their dying parents. Also, the comedian and satirist, Andrew Doyle, rides the ups and downs of his latest theatrical venture — a musical about wartime plastic surgery. From Edinburgh, one of Scotland’s leading historians talks to Ben Sixsmith about the hatreds stirred up by the city’s efforts to atone for its imperial heritage, with activists and academics trading accusations of racism and fake history against one another. In Hong Kong, Gawain Towler enjoys being wined and dined by Chinese secret agents who want him to be their man in Westminster, Matt Ridley goes on safari in the Maasai Mara, and R J Markowski stays warm in Yakutia, the coolest city on Earth. All this and more than fifty pages of reviews of books, sport, arts and culture bring you the Critic’s hot takes on everything from Belfast to Byzantium.