CD: Willie Nelson – Ride Me Back Home

Empathic third album in a late-career trilogy from the outlaw country icon

Willie’s new album opens with the singer calling out to all the tired old horses saved from the knackers and put out to pasture. It’s not just something he does in song, but in life. It’s co-written with Sonny Throckmorton, an old mucker of the Zen cowboy who lives next to Nelson’s Luck studio in Texas – and next door, too, to the stud of 60 or so retired horses saved by Nelson from the slaughterhouse and given a retirement home on his ranch.

Sweat, Gielgud Theatre review - searing drama of working life

★★★★★ SWEAT, GIELGUD THEATRE The indelible power of Lynn Nottage’s new play confirmed

The indelible power of Lynn Nottage’s new play confirmed in Donmar transfer

There’s a joke early on in Sweat, Lynn Nottage's superlative drama about American working lives, in which a lively bar-room conversation turns to the seemingly unlikely subject of NAFTA. It’s 2000, the Bush presidency just around the corner, and the impact of the acronymic North American Free Trade Agreement is about to hit the country's industrial heartlands.

We the Animals review - lyrical story of brotherly love and family trauma

In his first feature film, Jeremiah Zagar adapts - and waters down - Justin Torres's autobiographical coming-out novel

“When we were brothers we wanted more: more volume, more muscles, us three, us kings.” So begins documentary-maker Jeremiah Zagar’s faithful but watered-down adaptation of Justin Torres’s autobiographical coming-out novel, set in the 1990s.

Bob Dylan Special - Rolling Thunder Revue, Netflix

★★★★★ ROLLING THUNDER REVUE, NETFLIX Martin Scorsese reexamines legendary 1975 tour

Martin Scorsese reexamines the legendary 1975 tour

Tomorrow, Martin Scorsese delivers, via Netflix, two hours and 22 minutes of screen time devoted to Bob Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue, following on from the release last week of the latest Bootleg Series boxed set, 14 CDs covering five full concerts from November and December 1975, as well as rehearsals and sundry soundboard cuts from

Bronx Gothic, Young Vic review - fervid intensity

★★★★ BRONX GOTHIC, YOUNG VIC Okwui Okpokwasili’s solo is an astounding piece of theatre

Okwui Okpokwasili’s solo performance piece is an astounding piece of theatre

It’s hard, and finally fruitless to attempt to describe Okwui Okpokwasili’s Bronx Gothic in conventional terms of genre: combining elements of dance and theatre, this visceral solo performance transcends both.

Eating Animals review - a compelling tale of imminent disaster

The nastiness of the meat industry laid bare

Eating Animals begins as a David and Goliath tale of independent farmers versus industrial farming. Frank Reese specialises in rare-breed turkeys and chickens. He calls his farm the "Good Shepherd Poultry Ranch" because, for him, his traditional way of farming is akin to a religious experience. And when asked which of his birds matters most, the thought of having to choose almost reduces him to tears.