Kate Bush: Little Shrew review – this devastating film will make you weep at war’s violence against children

Written, directed and soundtracked by Bush, built up from sketches she drew herself, this four-minute animation is suffused with both love and horror

All of Kate Bush’s sense of wonder, and how she tempers it with not just melancholy but outright sorrow, is threaded through her devastatingly moving new animated short film, Little Shrew.

Bush hasn’t performed live in a decade, or released new music since 2011 – and there’s an initial twinge of disappointment on discovering that this film isn’t built around a piece of new music. (In a BBC Radio 4 interview promoting it, she hinted that she will begin writing new material again soon.) Instead, it’s soundtracked by an edit of Snowflake, the opening song from that 2011 album 50 Words for Snow – a duet between Bush and her son Bertie.

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Kate Bush: Little Shrew review – this devastating film will make you weep at war’s violence against children

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