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Showing posts with the label Kate Barton

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The moron premium live: The last days of Liz Truss @WhiteBearTheatr

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Watching a play about Liz Truss, Britain's shortest-serving Prime Minister, might seem as appealing as dental surgery. After all, you may be dealing with the repercussions of her fifty-day leadership, such as higher mortgage rates. You might also be familiar with the term "moron risk premium," coined by an economist to describe the impact of having Truss and Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng in charge. Consequently, revisiting this time in 2022 may not seem like an enticing subject for a theatrical production. However, writer Greg Wilkinson’s unique portrayal of select aspects of Truss’s life, alongside a standout performance by Emma Wilkinson Wright, makes this a compelling work. While Wright doesn’t physically resemble Truss, she delivers a performance that captures her mannerisms, awkwardness, and platitudes. The play is currently at the White Bear Theatre . Presented as a monologue, Wright performs at a desk, on it, or even in a chair while singing karaoke—one of Truss's ...

Low-calorie stories: Fast @ParkTheatre

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The pseudoscience of detox diets and fasting is given some historical context in Fast. Kate Barton's tale of Linda Hazzard, a quack doctor who inadvertently killed many of her patients is given the once over in this brisk adaptation of her life and crimes against science. It's a fascinating tale, but the roundabout way in which the story unfolds seems to undermine the tension, absurdities and horror of the story. It's currently playing at the Park Theatre . The piece centres around two wealthy English sisters travelling in Washington who stumble across Linda Hazzard's book, Fasting For The Cure Of Disease. The book is a curious polemic about how any disease can be treated through a series of fasting to cleanse the body of unspecified toxins. Available to read on the internet , it's like reading one of those self-published books on Amazon that has a curiously high number of five-star reviews. Hazzard was clearly ahead of her time. If she were alive today, she wou...