Bridget Christie, The Stand ★★★★★

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Comedy highlights from the world's biggest and best arts festival

Written by Veronica Lee in The Arts Desk on August 15th, 2016

Bridget Christie, The Stand ★★★★★

When Bridget Christie planned this show, it was to be a work in progress about mortality for a tour starting later this year. But then the EU referendum happened, and everything changed. Within the space of a few weeks, she had written this heartfelt polemic about Brexit, and it’s an astonishingly accomplished and moving work.

She tells us that, with so many bad things happening in the world at the moment, she’s going to do a nice, upbeat show about gardening, her new passion in life now that she is allowed to like the pursuit because she is past 40. She is very fond of her potted fuchsia, exactly the kind of pesky foreigner (it’s native to South America) UKIP might want to stop taking over our garden centres…

But that’s just a neat device to frame this examination of why 17 million British citizens voted to leave the European Union. They can’t all be mad, or stupid, or racist, as their detractors might argue. Christie wants to look at why they voted to leave, and why Britain should stay.

What follows is a call to arms for the 48 per cent who voted to remain, who, Christie suggests, should consider why so many people feel removed from the political process. She talks about the benefits of immigration for the UK and references her own parents, so proud of being Irish that they carried over soil from their homeland to pot their favourite plants here, but also keen that their children should be deeply rooted in Britain.

The show understandably has one or two rough edges but it’s a rollicking good hour.

Until 29 August

Written by Veronica Lee in The Arts Desk on 15th August 2016.
Filed Under: Because You Demanded It, Review

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