1987. Thatcher has been in power for eight years and Rick Astley promises he’s never going to never give us up. 1997. Seemingly overnight, Tony Blair turns the UK into a meritocracy and the Spice Girls recommend that we spice up our lives. 2007. The Great Global iPhone dictatorship begins and Britney has her breakdown. […]
Category archives: Edinburgh Fringe
People Show 130: The Last Straw
Agreed-upon conventions make communication possible. In the 1950s J.L. Austin famously explained how language is actually “performative”, that is, by saying certain things we are not just shaping streams of air flowing through our lungs, throat and mouth into sounds, we are actually physically shaping the world. Words, to put it succinctly, do. Which is […]
All Kinds of Magic
A small feather flutters from Robert Jägerhorn’s hands. I think he has just set free a caged bird I’ve seen him draw on a deck of playing cards with a sharpie just seconds before. I can’t be too sure though, because the moment is gone. All I’m left with is a content feeling of awe […]
Quiet Pop-Up Revolution
Just two people having a conversation, no props, no set – Duncan Macmillan’s Lungs is clever (life-altering discussions in IKEA-clever), funny (rambling, self-interrupting monologues with ecological self-awareness funny) conversations in the plural and I’m utterly absorbed in the quick to-and-fro, the quips and all the linguistic intricacies of Macmillan’s writing. I’m sitting in the Roundabout, […]