Avenue Q - Sell A Door Theatre Company

Avenue Q’s been around for a while now and it’s a show I’ve been meaning to see for ages. But I only saw it for the first time this week: the UK touring production from Sell A Door Theatre Company on its stop at Eastbourne’s Congress Theatre (5^th July 2016).

I really enjoyed it. A lot of it was a very funny take on the kind of twenty-something angst that I think a lot of people feel post-university. The opening lyric to one song was ‘What do you do with a BA in English?’. I have a BA in English, and it’s a question I still haven’t really answered satisfactorily, ten years after graduation.

Right now, my answer would appear to be: get a job to pay the bills – preferably one you don’t hate; read books on the commute to and from said job; write a blog about your occasional visits to the theatre.

Well, it’ll do for now.

And that’s what Avenue Q’s final message was. Yes, it’d be great to have a ‘purpose’ (a concept they explained Sesame Street-style on overhead TV screens), but actually most things in most people’s lives are pretty fleeting. Even Donald Trump is only ‘for now’.

So this grown-up Sesame Street, populated by unsentimental muppets who swear, drink, have sex, and sing songs about racism and internet porn, ends up being oddly reassuring.

Part pastiche, part glossy musical, part offbeat and a bit fringey – I know so many people who’d enjoy this show.

Catch it in Eastbourne until Saturday 9^th July!

Gulliver's Travels & The Canterbury Tales - The Pantaloons

This week I have been mostly watching The Pantaloons. Gulliver’s Travels in Eastbourne on 21^st June and The Canterbury Tales in Brighton on 22^nd June 2016.

Both were a lot of fun. Gulliver’s Travels was very silly generally, and full of fun little touches acknowledging the challenges of staging the outlandish story with no special effects. The Canterbury Tales was slick, pacey and hugely enjoyable despite the thunder and rain.

I’ve seen quite a lot of Pantaloons shows over the years (and I’ve written about a few of them on here), but before this week I’d never sat through a thunderstorm to see one. Mind you, I’d also never seen one performed beneath a rainbow, but at Canterbury Tales on Wednesday we had all the weather!

Actually, it kind of added to the experience. The thunder started rumbling just as we came to one of the darker tales, the Manciple’s tale told in the style of Edgar Allan Poe. And the Second Nun’s opera was accompanied by some well-timed thunderclaps. In the second half, the falling rain and sodden stage were incorporated into the cast’s performances to great comic effect.

We may have all got rather wet, and I may have seen them do Canterbury Tales before, but I’m glad we made it through to the end of the show. It’s a reliably funny adaptation of The Canterbury Tales, and with a cast full of confidence and enthusiasm, this is probably one of The Pantaloons’ best shows.

Gulliver’s Travels, by contrast, was indoors – so no weather worries there. (Though typically it was on a gloriously sunny day in Eastbourne). The challenges at this performance were more to do with managing the audience, who included stony-faced teenagers and good-natured hecklers. But of course the cast dealt with this with their customary humour and quick wit.

I enjoyed the Lilliputian finger puppets and their ‘close-ups’ – and the fight between the One Direction doll Gulliver and the giant rats was inspired. Just like watching children play with their toys. The yahoos were also fun – reminiscent of a memorable Sir Toby Belch in a previous Pantaloons production of Twelfth Night, and not all that dissimilar from a couple of characters in Canterbury Tales.

Both casts for Gulliver’s Travels and The Canterbury Tales are very strong: funny, shape-shifting, confident in interacting with the audience, and really rather talented musically.

And, in referendum week, both productions made reference to the EU vote. In the improvised tale at the end of The Canterbury Tales, an undecided dragon voter was defeated by a ‘Vote Remain’ poster. I bet the politicians wish it was that simple.

And on that note, I’m off to vote!


The Pantaloons are on tour with The Canterbury Tales and Gulliver’s Travels all summer – visit their website www.thepantaloons.co.uk for a full list of tour dates.

The Importance of Being Earnest - The Pantaloons

I always enjoy a Pantaloons show. I like their style – madcap, physical, and often slightly anarchic but not without depth and substance.

The Importance of Being Earnest is not an obvious choice of play for them – it has little depth and doesn’t lend itself easily to anarchy. But that didn’t stop the Pantaloons bringing their customary verve and vigour to it at the Underground Theatre on 7^th May 2016. With added songs, audience participation, and numerous un-Wildean interjections, they unashamedly turned the piece into a proper Pantaloons show.

Wilde purists may have been taken aback by the way the physical became just as integral to the humour as the words. Lady Bracknell (Kelly Griffiths), Doctor Chasuble (Neil Jennings), and Miss Prism (Alex Rivers), in particular, became much funnier through their physical characterisation than I have often seen them portrayed.

But a Pantaloons show is no place for purists. As they say in their programme notes, the company aims to “wrench these works from the closed world of theatrical and educational institutions and return them to the breathing, bustling world of the outdoors, telling contemporary stories in a contemporary way to contemporary audiences.”

So if you’re attracted by the title and only want to see a traditional production of The Importance of Being Earnest, then, I’ll be honest, this may not be entirely for you. But if, on the other hand, you’re ambivalent about the title because you think it’ll be the same old thing, then I’d urge you to give the Pantaloons a go. You’ll enjoy it more than you think, and it definitely won’t just be the same old thing.

And that goes for Earnest, their Shakespeares, and any of their other productions too. So if you’ve missed Earnest (it's on tour until 14th May), the Pantaloons are on tour with three productions over the summer months. Take a look at their website for details of Gulliver’s Travels, The Canterbury Tales, and Romeo and Juliet.

Macbeth - The Pantaloons

Film noir. Intrigue, suspense, guns, cars, darkness, saxophone music. Witches in bins? Shakespearean knock knock jokes? Stories from the audience? Why not? This is the Pantaloons, after all.

Their take on Macbeth (which visited Eastbourne’s Underground Theatre on 17/10/15) incorporated all of the above and much more in a tight, dramatic and inventive production.

I particularly liked the witches. Three puppets in a bin, like some kind of sinister Sesame Street, lit from beneath and swaying and cackling in the darkness. Brilliant.

The light (or lack of it) and sound throughout was really effective – atmospheric, suspenseful, and at times used for comic effect. The film noir homages, the shadows, the way many of Macbeth’s soliloquies were delivered in semi-darkness in the midst of the audience – all these combined to create a much darker show (literally and metaphorically) than we’re used to from the Pantaloons.

And it was great. There were some pretty powerful moments – from Macbeth (Chris Smart), Lady Macbeth (Alex Rivers), Macduff (Neil Jennings), and Malcolm (Hannah Ellis) as our narrator.

I heard several audience members afterwards comment on the dexterity with which the cast switched between drama and comedy. There’s not a huge amount of comedy in Macbeth, but the Pantaloons drew out and made the most of what there is. Kelly Griffiths, in particular, struck up a great rapport with the audience as the Porter: getting members of the audience to tell stories of strange goings-on and riffing on these; telling jokes; encouraging us to join in as guests at the banquet. The audience always becomes part of the play at a Pantaloons show, and Macbeth was no exception.

A packed house at the Underground Theatre all left the place buzzing and saying how much they’d enjoyed it. The cast may have sung about the curse of Macbeth, but luckily the curse didn’t seem to be in evidence on the night.


The Pantaloons are on tour with Macbeth until the end of November – see their website www.thepantaloons.co.uk for full tour details.

Much Ado About Nothing - The Pantaloons

It’s always fun seeing a Pantaloons show, but it’s a particular pleasure when it’s a Shakespeare play.

They performed Much Ado About Nothing at Eastbourne’s Underground Theatre on 11^th August 2015. On top of the familiar Pantaloons ingredients of music, ad libbing, and interacting with the audience, Much Ado has the added benefit of being written by Shakespeare, who has been known to write a good play or two.

The cast has such ease with the language: full of life and character; never a struggle to understand; you could hardly discern the join between the original text and the modern asides.

In a cast of just four, there was much doubling (tripling/quadrupling), and this is where the physicality of the cast’s performances came into its own. They didn’t just rely on costume or voice to distinguish one character from another: each character was immediately identifiable simply by how they held themselves and moved. The villainous Don John, Borachio’s mimes, the old man Antonio, and the choreography of the Watch showed this physicality at its best.

Other touches I enjoyed: the Loons boxes; the music, bubbles and birds when Benedick decided he was in love (and the expression on Neil Jennings’ face as Benedick at that point); the ‘post-credits’ moments at the end; the way the cast seamlessly incorporated a broken telescope prop (and trying to fix it) into a scene, without once losing the rhythm of the dialogue or direction of the action.

The Pantaloons are primarily touring Much Ado About Nothing as an outdoor production, and I’d have liked to have seen this outdoors. I can see that certain scenes would work even better out in the open air and with more space than the stage at the Underground Theatre would allow.

Having seen other Pantaloons shows both inside and outside (Pride and Prejudice most recently), it’s interesting what differences the setting makes. Outdoors in Pride and Prejudice, and probably in Much Ado too, a more serious, reflective mood seems to settle as the darkness falls. While still moving in an indoor setting, I can imagine Claudio’s heartbroken song at Hero’s ‘tomb’ is quite spine-tingling outside at nightfall.

But the Underground Theatre, as its name suggests, is underground – and there are definite benefits to being indoors. You know you won’t get rained on, for a start.

Speaking of which, (as I’m hoping it doesn’t rain), I’ll be seeing the Globe’s production of Much Ado About Nothing this weekend. It’ll be interesting to compare and contrast.


The Pantaloons are on tour with Much Ado About Nothing until 23^rd August. Full tour dates are on their website: thepantaloons.co.uk

Treasure Island - The Pantaloons

Huge amounts of energy. Huge amounts of silliness. Huge amounts of fun.

This incredibly fast-paced production of Treasure Island by The Pantaloons (which I saw in Eastbourne on 25^th July 2015) sees just three actors play all the characters. There follows an entertaining variety of madcap characterisations and questionable regional accents. And audience interaction, singing, drumming, ad libbing, and so much packed in you wonder that the cast don’t just collapse in a heap at the end!

I really enjoyed it. So did the kids in the audience around me. They were completely rapt throughout.

In a lot of ways, watching The Pantaloons’ Treasure Island is like watching kids playing at being pirates. The plastic swords, the parrot puppet, the hand gestures to show imaginary spurts of blood when injured. And all played with such gusto and exuberance.

I particularly enjoyed the sword fights (hey, I’m a big kid), and the hip hop medley as Jim ‘drives’ the ship.

I have to confess there were times when I didn’t entirely follow what was going on plot-wise – but it didn’t bother me in the slightest. I was having too much fun.

I’ve read the original book of Treasure Island (I’m afraid it hasn’t stuck in my head much), and I’ve seen the Muppets’ version on film (which has stuck in my head much more). The Pantaloons’ version rivals the Muppets’ for zaniness and probably surpasses both versions in terms of pace.

Really, the huge amount of energy on stage was something to behold.


The Pantaloons are on tour with Treasure Island until 30^th August 2015. See their website for full tour details.

They will be returning to Eastbourne’s Under Ground Theatre on 11^th August with Much Ado About Nothing. After their Treasure Island and Pride and Prejudice, I’m looking forward to seeing what else they’ve got up their sleeves.

Pride and Prejudice - The Pantaloons

Pride and Prejudice is one of those texts that everyone thinks they know all about – whether or not they’ve read Austen’s book. It’s a romance. About well-to-do people with excessively polite manners. And Colin Firth emerging dripping from a lake.

The Pantaloons, of course, excel at playing with these kinds of widely-known texts. They take what everyone thinks they know, lightly mock those expectations, draw out the humour of the original (many of the lines in this adaptation are taken word for word from the book), and they present their own Pantaloonish take.

They started the evening at the Underground Theatre by asking the audience who’d read the book (almost everyone said they had) – and then by asking who’d said that they’d read the book but had actually just seen an adaptation (a few honest souls said yes). They told us on more than one occasion that the famous lake scene was neither in the book nor in their adaptation. And throughout they slipped constantly and seamlessly between 18^th century and 21^st century dialogue, bringing the characters to life and interacting with the audience. This is what I mean by ‘their own Pantaloonish take’: they don’t just act the story out in front of you, they step out of it, bring you into it, have fun with it, and make you engage with it.

The focus of The Pantaloons’ Pride and Prejudice is probably more on the comedy than on the romance. There are certainly some particularly memorable characterisations, what with Lady Catherine’s roar, her daughter’s cough, Mary’s leadenness, and a Mr Collins who wouldn’t be out of place in an episode of Green Wing.

But the scenes that are played more or less straight – such as Lizzy and Darcy’s argument after his first proposal – are absolutely electric. And the moment when Wickham is all that Lizzy can think about is both amusing and evocative too.

The music, as always in a Pantaloons show, plays an important part in creating an atmosphere. But in this production, they make the most of not having a piano in one particular scene, as a cast member becomes the piano (and is then ‘played’ by other cast members). Indeed, an impromptu piano-based pun competition set off by an audience member threatened to derail the scene at one point – but they swiftly got back on track and it served to showcase both the quick wit of the cast and their skill in dealing with and incorporating unexpected distractions.

Aside from one or two rather vocal audience members, it was a quieter audience than usual when I saw Pride and Prejudice (Sunday 14^th June 2015). But the cast worked hard to create the same inclusive, energetic atmosphere as always, and – though quiet – everyone there left with a smile on their face.

So if you think you already know all about Pride and Prejudice and what to expect – this’ll be different from the adaptations you’ve seen before. You might not get Colin Firth, but you will have a gloriously entertaining evening.


The Pantaloons are on tour with Pride and Prejudice throughout the summer – see their website www.thepantaloons.co.uk for full tour details.

Rebecca - Kneehigh

I’ve not read the novel or seen any other adaptations of it, so I was coming to Rebecca fresh. But regardless of my knowledge of the book, it’s clear that Kneehigh’s stage production of Rebecca is a very inventive adaptation.

As soon as you see the set, you know you’re in for something special. Part grand house in ruins; part seashore; broken staircases running across the stage. And the boat looming centre-stage throughout the first half, reminding us always that Rebecca’s absence is a very real presence in the house.

If any of the audience at Eastbourne’s Devonshire Park Theatre (15^th April 2015) was expecting a straight adaptation, with ‘realistic’ sets and the usual period drama tropes, they would have been taken by surprise by Kneehigh’s Rebecca.

This is a much more stylised adaptation. Set, sound, lighting, puppetry and music all combine to tell the tale and draw out the themes. Such as the combination of jazz music on a gramophone and sea shanties being played by the actor-musicians: the clash of the sophisticated and the elemental.

Obviously if you’ve seen Kneehigh before, or know them by reputation, then you know that they’re nothing if not inventive. Rebecca features their trademark music, comedy and playfulness and ties these up in a full on, dark, ambitious production.

I remember seeing Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge in the cinema when it came out, and having to take a moment at the end just to recover from the force of the visual and aural whirlwind that had just swept around me.

I felt a bit like that at the end of Rebecca.

Very much worth seeing.

Peter Pan Goes Wrong - Mischief Theatre

Laughter is a funny thing. (Pun intended). I can spend all day laughing at little things – but go into a theatre to watch something that’s designed to make people laugh and my laughter becomes something different. Suddenly it’s a reward I can choose to bestow or not. It’s an effort. It’s something that has to be cajoled out of me.

Or at least, that’s how it felt while watching Mischief Theatre’s Peter Pan Goes Wrong at the Devonshire Park Theatre, Eastbourne, on 24^th March 2015.

People around me were in hysterics. I found some bits quite amusing. I suppose it’s all personal taste.

This play comes from the same people as The Play that Goes Wrong, which by all accounts is very funny indeed. So I went into Peter Pan Goes Wrong ready and expecting to be entertained.

The conceit of the play is that a small amateur dramatics society is putting on a Christmas production of Peter Pan. For me – while they squeezed the mileage out of the am dram bit – they could have made more of the Peter Pan bit.

The original Peter Pan (without anything going wrong) is a playful, mischievous text. It’s full of knowing winks to the audience and doesn’t shy away from the fact that it creates an imaginary world where fantastical, ridiculous things happen. I can’t help but feel that if Mischief Theatre could have found a way to tease this out in Peter Pan Goes Wrong then they would have had a much funnier play on their hands.

But they weren’t really interested in Peter Pan. Their main focus was the am dram aspect of it all, which they played well. They were completely committed to the world they created for the amateur theatre company.

The programme on sale had biographies for the characters within the play who were the cast of Peter Pan. There were fake adverts in the programme which related to the world of the play. In the interval, Christmas music was played – as Peter Pan was supposed to be the amateur company’s Christmas production.

We, the audience, were very much cast as the audience at the amateur company’s performance. When the cast addressed us as the audience, they were in character as the amateur actors addressing their own local audience. They played it straight in this respect.

There was no suggestion of the third layer – that we were an audience at the Devonshire Park Theatre watching a professional company pretending to be amateurs. There was no knowing wink to the audience, nor any acknowledgement that they were creating an imaginary world where ridiculous things happen.

Any why should there be? Judging by the laughter around me, this wasn’t a problem for most of the audience. But I found it a tricky position to be in. I was being asked to suspend my disbelief – and yet I was also being asked to laugh. If I really did buy into the world of the play, then the evening was not funny but painful. Lord knows I’ve seen enough not-very-good amateur productions in my time.

Despite these reservations, there were moments that made me laugh out loud. And there were moments that I recognised with amusement from real productions I’d seen. I just felt that it could have been much funnier if only Mischief Theatre’s writing and direction had been a little more mischievous.

Sherlock Holmes - The Pantaloons

I’ve written before about The Pantaloons. And I’ve written before about the Devonshire Park Theatre in my home town of Eastbourne. So to write about them together is something of a joy.

I saw The Pantaloons’ Sherlock Holmes at the DPT on Wednesday 16^th April 2014 (at the evening performance). I’d seen their Sherlock Holmes early on in last year’s run, but this year’s version – now indoors and with a slightly tweaked cast – is an even slicker, funnier and more confident production.

All the cast are seasoned Pantaloons now. Three of the cast were in the previous tour – although last year’s Watson is now Holmes (Edward Ferrow, faintly Cumberbatch-like in this role) – and the new Watson (Christopher Smart, a gleefully wicked improviser) has been in various other shows with The Pantaloons. They all know exactly how to work an audience: how to interact with them and improvise around them; how to milk a laugh.

And the gags are just as silly as last year. The variations on ‘Elementary, my dear Watson’ are still groan-worthily funny, and I’m not sure I’d ever get tired of the Circle Line joke.

Like Gary, the audience member who had been at both the matinee and the evening performance that day, I have yet to see the alternative version of this production, where the stories and roles are different. Both this time and last time I saw it, the audience chose to see the story of The League of Red Headed Men – meaning, as a consequence, that I’ve seen cast member Isaac Leafe twice now as Moriarty, but never Elliot Quinn.

But even with the same rendering of the play on offer (and how many companies would give you an option, anyway?), no two performances by The Pantaloons are ever exactly the same.


After seeing Filter’s Twelfth Night at the DPT recently, it’s great to see another fresh, slightly anarchic production again there so soon. I love the Devonshire Park as a theatre, and it’s fantastic to see more of the kind of theatre I enjoy being put on at the Devonshire Park.


The Pantaloons are on tour with Sherlock Holmes until the end of April. Full tour details can be found on their website.

If you want to know how my review of the 2014 Sherlock Holmes compares to last year’s, you can find my thoughts from 2013 here.

Twelfth Night - Filter

One of those happy things in life: I’ve never seen a bad production of Twelfth Night. And Filter’s version (which I saw at Eastbourne’s Devonshire Park Theatre on 25^th March 2014) is no exception.

Anarchic, energetic, and with a definite sense of ‘licence’, Filter’s Twelfth Night offered just the refreshment I needed after a dull Tuesday in the office. (And no, I’m not referring to the pizza and tequila on offer from the cast!)

This production was less concerned with the romantic entanglements of the twins, and more interested in the foolish and drunken antics of the other characters. The notion of misrule wasn’t just acted out in front of us and contained on the stage – it was running right through the whole production.

The way the usually central plot was secondary to the revelry of Sir Toby Belch and Sir Andrew Aguecheek. The way Shakespeare’s script was almost abandoned for large swathes of the evening while we did things like throw velcro balls at the stage. The way the audience was invited on to the stage in a conga line. Even Malvolio, in this version, was a wannabe rock star who was only too willing to throw off the shackles of convention (and most of his clothes).

I’ve seen a fair few of these elements elsewhere: throwing things at the stage (Bristol Old Vic’s Swallows and Amazons); Shakespeare mixed with audience interaction (The Pantaloons); getting the audience to join in the party (Kneehigh’s Midnight’s Pumpkin – and even Once had a functioning bar on stage). But seeing it at the Devonshire Park Theatre, with its proscenium arch and orchestra pit, just enhanced that sense of misrule.

A middle-aged Eastbourne gentleman near me muttered to his wife half way through: “Well I’ve never seen anything like this before.” And that summed up the evening for me. This stage, which has seen so many Agatha Christies, was overrun by a sort of joyous anarchy. We all joined Filter’s party and helped them turn the play and the theatre upside down for a little while.

And then we went back to work the next day, as if nothing had ever happened. The twins married the right people, and order was restored.

 

Harlequin Goes to the Moon - Rude Mechanical Theatre Company

Thursday 1^st August 2013. Outdoor theatre was made for evenings like this. How often does it happen, in England, that you don’t need to put on a coat or wrap yourself up in a blanket even after the interval, when the sun has gone down?

I chose a good night to go and see the Rude Mechanicals perform their latest play Harlequin Goes to the Moon.

This was the second piece of theatre I’ve seen recently that was about love, loss, and travelling into space. (See also Something Very Far Away at the Unicorn Theatre). The idea of travelling far away to find what is lost was central to both pieces. It’s an effective theme; implicitly connecting the personal with the universal.

In Harlequin Goes to the Moon, the character of Paglia believes that all the lost things are kept in bottles on the moon. His idea is dismissed by others, but this hopeful little play suggests that lost things can be rediscovered. Characters who seemed beyond hope find a way to be happy in the world. And yet there is also the poignant acknowledgement that not everyone can get what they want. Some things remain out of reach, on the moon.

A few years ago, I was at a music festival, and there was a ‘tree of lost things’ on the site. On paper tags, people wrote down what they had lost (some literal, some philosophical), and tied them to the tree. These tags became like leaves on the tree, and it remains one of my most vivid memories of the festival.

In the programme for Harlequin Goes to the Moon, the audience is encouraged to do something similar. We’re asked to write what we have lost on a slip of paper and put it into one of the bottles that hang from the trees on the stage.

I must admit, I didn’t see anyone doing this from where I was sitting, but it was an invitation that tied in with the Rude Mechanicals’ idea of community. Beyond the audience interactions and the cast improvising around local distractions (eg. being upstaged by a cat wandering across the set), the Rude Mechanicals seem to work hard to build relationships with their audiences and with the communities they visit.

Another note in the programme tells us that the company doesn’t search for venues by thinking “this would be a good place to have a show”. Rather, they start by thinking who the audience will be and which venue would be best for that audience. They say: “What matters is that it is where that community meet and do things.”

It’s rather strange to think of a group of commedia dell’arte inspired actor-musicians performing in a modern recreation ground in the south of England. And yet apparently it works for the Rude Mechanicals.

As with The Pantaloons and Little Bulb, the Rude Mechanicals ask a lot from their actors. And they’re a multi-talented bunch: acting, singing, playing instruments, improvising about cats... Even the stage manager has a speaking/playing part in this piece.

So I’m glad that the sun has been shining more than usual this summer. Hopefully it means that more people will get a chance to see them.

The Rude Mechanicals are on tour until August 11^th so catch them while you can! http://www.therudemechanicaltheatre.co.uk/

Maybe you can live on the moon in the next century – Fiona Rae at Towner, Eastbourne

I don’t know why it is, but I always feel slightly anxious about getting the ‘right answer’ when it comes to the visual arts. This isn’t something that bothers me with books or theatre or film, but I often feel a bit self-conscious about my response to paintings.

Of course, I know that there’s no ‘right answer’ really. And I also know that Towner – and art galleries up and down the country – are doing their best to reach out to people who wouldn’t normally consider themselves ‘art people’. So, in that spirit, here’s what I thought about the exhibition of 16 of Fiona Rae’s paintings, collectively titled Maybe you can live on the moon in the next century.

The first thing to note (in my typical, word-focused fashion) is that the artist likes long titles. As well as the painting from which the exhibition draws its name, there are pieces called The woman who can do self expression will shine through all eternity and We go in search of our dream, amongst others. I chose to read the titles as part of the works of art rather than as optional extras. Indeed, in the case of The woman who can do..., the words are inscribed on the canvas alongside the painted pinks, purples, bunnies and flowers.

A lot of the titles, read in conjunction with the paintings, seem like they could be ironic. Are we really meant to accept a largely pink canvas with cartoon rabbits on it as an example of a woman’s self expression? Feminist that I am, I can hardly believe so – and so I assume it’s ironic. And yet, the artist is a woman, and this work is some form of expression from her. Suddenly it’s making me think of As You Like It, with the girls playing boys playing girls. Only this time, it’s woman playing woman.

As with Bright Young Things, it’s all a bit postmodern. Just like in Scarlett Thomas’ book, these paintings bring a jumble of ‘narratives’ together. The introductory text in the Towner’s exhibition describes this jumble as ‘competing and sometimes clashing visual, graphic and painterly languages’. So alongside the more traditional painting techniques on the canvas, there are also little animé-style pandas, pieces of floating typography, and glitter – lots of glitter.

High art merges with popular culture and we’re presented with something that seems to raise an ironic eyebrow at itself.

I have no idea if any of this comes close to the ‘right answer’ or general consensus on Fiona Rae’s work. But I’m going to trust my postmodern instincts and claim it as my answer.

The exhibition runs at the Towner until 23rd June 2013 and entry is free. We like free entry. I stopped in at this exhibition on my way to the seafront, and I may well not have made the diversion out of the Eastbourne sunshine if it hadn't been free.