My Politics: August 2007

I have been in Edinburgh for nearly a week this summer and it has been fantastic. I have seen about 15 shows from comedy to musical to improvisation to breakfast with Bach and honestly I have enjoyed everything I have seen. Some shows certainly stand o

ut; 'Tony Blair-The Musical' was highly entertaining, 'One Night the Musical' was breathtaking (it was improvised on the spot), Loung Ung at the book festival was inspirational, the list really does go on.

Today I saw something that really moved me.

The play was called '40 Feathered Winks' and was by The Paper Birds Theatre Company:

Here is a quick synopsis from thestage.co.uk:

"A man and woman meet at a conference, flirt, and eventually end up in bed, only to face the awkwardness and embarrassment of parting the next morning. A couple engrossed in their separate books in bed manage to have sex without losing their places. A woman sits by the hospital bed of her comatose sister, reading from a Spanish dictionary just to make her voice heard, while enough filters into the patient’s consciousness to produce Spanish-flavoured nightmares. A new mother battles the horrors of sleepless nights and postpartum depression. "

After I left the theatre today i had to hold myself from running back in and telling the actors just how great i thought they were, luckily I resisted and my dignity is somewhat intact. I have decided to write them a letter(email):

Dear The Paper Bird,

Today I was fortunate enough to go and see your production of '40 feathered winks' and I was truly moved. It is not often that I have to keep my mum company because she can't stop crying or, in fact, that I have to fight to keep myself from flooding a theatre with my tears.

The Edinburgh festival is truly a fantastic showcase of talent and everything I have seen has been of a very high standard but today your show blew the others away. I have read some reviews of the play by The Guardian and The Scotsman, i can only presume they saw a different play to that which I saw. The very idea of the performance was inspired. To set a play about the part of our lives which plays never cover is both original and insightful. You managed to write a piece to which everyone can relate.

I am no critic and can really say no more than this. In the scene involving a mother's postnatal depression and rejection of her baby, everytime she screamed I felt my stomach tighten, the hairs on my neck stand up and my eyes fill with tears. It was truly moving. The acting was superb, the movement was sensual and, at times, comic and it was truly a piece that I couldn't keep my eyes off.

Thank you
.....................................................

So why do I put this on my blog? Because art is so important. Art helps us create ideas, inspire people and deal with problems- social and personal. I recommend the Edinburgh festival to all and I hope that any artists out there never stop doing what they do because society needs you just like we need the doctor or the farmers, we need you.

To all of those who went to Heathrow this week; thank you. The time has now come for us to take direct action against airport and road expansion because our government will not listen to reason. A third runway at Heathrow airport simply cannot be constructed if we, as a nation, are going to be taking climate change seriously.
Over the coming years the battle at the airports will become more and more important but we must remember that a) it is not the passengers we should be disrupting but instead the airport authorities and airline offices and b) that people must be encouraged to make the right decision about flying and that educating people about alternatives and their carbon footprint will, in the long run, be more useful then simply stopping them from flying.
We will not be intimidated by the police or the government over this one. Airport expansion must be stopped.

'When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty'