What better a backdrop to this adapted mid-nineteenth century Russian tale of furtive favours and farce than the current HSBC Swiss branch shenanigans? Today it’s ‘bricks’ of used notes walking out of a culture of silence. Back in 1836 Nikolai Gogol was having enormous fun at the expense of the dodgy geezers in small town Russian bureaucracy – nods and winks divided by almost two centuries, but a common theme to both.
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” . . .The Paper Birds have recognised two big truths: firstly that debt is the vehicle by which financial establishments create new money. And secondly that we are all slavishly engaged in the perpetration of this act, but that some are paying a higher price than others. . . Close to the Ustinov you can hear the sound of tennis balls ‘pocking’ away in brightly lit and heated all-year membership-only courts. . . Less than 500 metres away the Bath Food Bank operates out of the Manvers Street Baptist Church. The Paper Birds are right to tap into this dichotomy.”
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“. . . Smith uses the play to make wider points. “There is a lot of dementia about,” he says, “We are forgetting to care for one another in an everyday common sense sort of way.” Delivered by the man who no longer recognises his own family, this makes for powerful health politicking. . . Smith’s convincing narrative makes us weep, sometimes ironically laugh at this uncomfortable yet for many inevitable seventh stage in the life of man. By putting the condition centre stage we are all helped to look at it in the teeth.”
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“If you look Dory Previn up on YouTube you’ll see that her clips have been viewed on average about 20,000 times each. By comparison Kate Bush’s views on the video-sharing website number in the many millions. Both women were working in the 1970s, both were writing highly original and personal material with sometimes quirky lyrics . . . Kate Dimbleby’s celebratory exploration of Previn’s experiences and songbook breathed life back into this deeply personal work that has always existed outside music’s mainstream.”
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“. . . In your face, up your bottom, Fleabag is about sex – shedloads of it during a steamy, hilarious and sometimes disturbing hour. Bright-eyed, rouge-lipped Maddie Rice delivers Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s pulsating, award-winning monologue with disarming easy confidence . . . Waller-Bridge is a voice to be reckoned with. Take note, this woman knows no fear. At a time when post modernist feminism is battering at The Sun to remove its topless page 3, along comes Fleabag to post us a vagina selfie. You work it out! Brilliant.”
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