Mad or Just Muddled? It's Been Quite a Week, Says Libby Purves, with the Country Snowed to a Standstill, the Airwaves Reeling in Golli- Shock and Theologically Disputatious Buses
Summary
Alan Bennett's absurdist play Enjoy, just revived, shows an elderly Leeds couple in a back-to-back terrace who find themselves being silently observed by a social worker in a grey suit. "She" - another twist, it's their long-lost gay son - is taking notes on their quarrels, domestic routines and neighbourhood relationships, in order to display them in a museum of working-class life.
It is a nice conceit, and has been much on my mind this week as an invisible (although probably not transvestite) Martian anthropology student watches Britain flailing around in weather events, golli-shock, obscure foxhunting legalities, and buses that manage to be both theologically disputatious and mortally frightened of snow. The Martian - let's call him ET - has had a trying week, scribbling away under the working title: "Britain 2009 - mad or just muddled?"See the full content of this document
Extract
Mad or Just Muddled? It's Been Quite a Week, Says Libby Purves, with the Country Snowed to a Standstill, the Airwaves Reeling in Golli- Shock and Theologically Disputatious Buses
It began with a foot of snow. In one snapshot, he observes me in the kitchen of a remote house in Suffolk listening to the radio station emoting about impassable roads, mortal peril on the pavements and closed schools. "Only make essential journeys!" it cries. Suddenly, up the ...
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