{"id":77705,"date":"2019-01-28T01:05:47","date_gmt":"2019-01-28T00:05:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/2019\/01\/28\/welcome-to-the-uk-review-fancy-a-game-of-home-office-bingo\/"},"modified":"2019-01-28T01:05:47","modified_gmt":"2019-01-28T00:05:47","slug":"welcome-to-the-uk-review-fancy-a-game-of-home-office-bingo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/?p=77705","title":{"rendered":"Welcome to the UK review \u2013 fancy a game of Home Office bingo?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Bunker, LondonThe Borderline theatre group\u2019s timely satire is well-intentioned, but its funfair setting reduces it to baggy vaudevilleThis is a prime example of what you might call theatre of good intentions. It is performed by a multinational ensemble, many of whom are refugees, named Borderline after the title of their initial 2016 show described as \u201ca satire of the Calais Jungle\u201d. While I understand their desire, under the direction of Sophie NL Besse, to use comedy as a way of challenging officialdom\u2019s hostile environment, this devised piece remains a ramshackle affair.The basic idea is to turn this subterranean Southwark theatre into a funfair with the actors taking on the role of stallholders, clowns and musicians and inviting the audience to blow up balloons. But it is a loose format, confusingly combined with that of a circus, that is largely a means of showcasing a number of sketches. One or two items hit home. A game of Home Office bingo suggests that the granting of residency depends on the cruelty of chance. The suffocating nature of do-gooding liberalism is also caught through the sight of a refugee being bound and gagged while his benefactor merrily chirps songs from Mary Poppins. Continue reading&#8230;<br \/>\nVia: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/stage\/2019\/jan\/28\/welcome-to-the-uk-review-the-bunker-london-borderline-refugees\" target=\"_blank\">Welcome to the UK review \u2013 fancy a game of Home Office bingo?<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Bunker, LondonThe Borderline theatre group\u2019s timely satire is well-intentioned, but its funfair setting reduces it to baggy vaudevilleThis is a prime example of what you might call theatre of good intentions. It is performed by a multinational ensemble, many of whom are refugees, named Borderline after the title of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-77705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77705","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=77705"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77705\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=77705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=77705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=77705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}