Tron Theatre, Glasgow
4 stars
A pint of milk costs fifty-one pence. Body parts can be bought and sold
for far greater sums. But how much would an air guitar go for on ebay?
Or an imaginary friend? Think about those last two questions for a
minute, and you should realise the sheer absurdity of a market-led
economy in recessionary times. Writer/performer Daniel Bye has, and has
woven his findings into this quietly utopian performance lecture, which
he brought to the Tron's Mayfesto season for one night only on Sunday
night.
With just a power-point presentation, a chair and enough bottles of
milk to give everyone in the audience a glass, Bye serves up and
dissects the facts and figures behind our money-driven society before
offering up an idealistic alternative which just might work. This comes
in the form of a shaggy-dog story about finding a twenty pound note on
a train, which leads to Bye and a stranger in a Garfield t-shirt
founding a free milk bar which further inspires a cash-free society to
be founded in a network of abandoned shop-fronts.
Bye is an engagingly down to earth and self-deprecatory raconteur, but
make no mistake. These are revolutionary ideas he's advocating in the
friendliest way imaginable. They're ideas too which a lot more people
are looking to as capitalism becomes increasingly untenable.
It's not known whether the UK Secretary of State for Culture, Media and
Sport Maria Miller has seen Bye's show or not, but perhaps she and her
front-bench colleagues might wish to buy a ticket. Even better, Bye
could maybe perform it in parliament itself. Now that really would be
priceless.
The Herald, May 7th 2013
ends
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