Artz and Kulcha

As well as finding time to offend friends on both the left and right of politics, I manage to lead a bizarre double-life as an arts reviewer for The Program, an excellent arts and culture website. For your edification, here's some of my latest work:

DVD :: Cho Revolution - Margaret Cho with Bruce Daniels
"So I think that if racial minorities, sexual minorities, feminists, both male and female, hell, all liberals, if we all got together and had this big "too much information", "go there" voice, if we just went and did it, that would equal power, and that power would equal change, and that change would equal... a revolution."

And so ends Margaret Cho's hilarious call to arms at the climax to her laugh-packed and offense-filled stageshow and DVD, Cho Revolution. Cho has been an American comedy institution for over a decade, rejecting the bland observation-fuelled gags which have sustained so many other comics. Instead, Cho uses comedy as a vehicle to communicate ideas - she seeks to challenge as well as to amuse. Cho has an unashamedly political agenda as she seeks to give voice to some of the groups shut out of public debate in Bush's America. As with her performing, the timing of her rise was exquisite - in the same year that renegade political comic Bill Hicks died, Cho was offered a TV sitcom, All American Girl, which allowed her to enter the hearts and minds of Americans. If Hicks was Asian, female and possessed slightly less facial hair, he would be Margaret Cho.

Read the rest here.

I've also been out at the theatre, at the must-see Bell Shakespeare production of Measure For Measure:

Theatre :: Measure For Measure - Bell Shakespeare, touring nationally

A punk rebel without a cause. A set filled with seedy porno posters. An wog pimp with all the bling. Sounds like just another night watching Shakespeare. With John Bell in the director's chair.

Over the years Bell Shakespeare has worn its antiestablishmentism as a badge of honour, loudly and proudly thumbing its nose at those who have a more conservative taste in the Bard. This time around the company turns its attention to one Shakespeare's lesser-known plays, Measure For Measure, and the outcome is a triumph. The performance begins the moment you arrive in the theatre - not with the players on stage, but with a bold set dominated by faux grandeur and garbage cans as well as a liberal array of scantily clad men and women. It takes a while to take in the message purveyed by the set, and it provides a sure guide of things to come. Veteran designer Robert Kemp and Pier Productions deserve plenty of credit for getting the tone right from the start.

Read the rest of that one here.

Comments

K said…
The question remains can I lend it?

Btw her blog address is:
http://www.margaretcho.com/blog/blog.htm

Check it out if you haven't already

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