Hurts Given and Received: 3 stars from The Times

The Times have posted their review (with photo of Tom as Bach) and awarded 3 stars.

And this piece, in a striking production presented by the Barker-dedicated company the Wrestling School and directed by Gerrard McArthur, finds him in unusually accessible — even jocular — mood.

In Tomas Leipzig’s design, bundles of manuscripts are suspended from the ceiling, and a boardwalk leads to a towering wooden desk and chair, where Tom Riley as Bach, a poet, scribbles and scratches away. The set cleverly points up the relationship between paper and wood — one a product made from the other — and in so doing draws a connection between the artist and the artisan...

...The complexity of Barker’s poetic language and ideas remains exigent, and the austerity of his aesthetic can be disengaging. But McArthur’s production is as precise as a paper cut, and there are rewards here for those prepared to work for them.