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Showing posts with label africa. Show all posts
Showing posts with label africa. Show all posts
Thursday, May 21, 2015
Thursday, May 21, 2015
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I've got to admit, I wasn't exactly looking forward to Sense of an Ending. While I love theatre that grapples with weighty subjects, I couldn't quite imagine how the horror of the Rwandan Genocide could possibly be translated on a fringe theatre stage above a pub. Then again, Theatre503 are vying for the top position in my personal Premier League of London theatre; I've never seen a bad play here.
I still haven't. Ken Urban's Sense of an Ending is an extraordinarily powerful piece of theatre that approaches this most difficult of subject matter with confidence, intelligence and a surfeit of humanity.
Based on a true story, we follow New York Times reporter Charles (Ben Onwukwe) as he investigates the involvement of two Benedictine nuns in the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Sisters Justina (Lynette Clarke) and Alice (Akiya Henry) are about to be sent to Belgium from Rwanda to stand trial for crimes against humanity and homicide. The accusations are that the nuns, who are both Hutu, were faced with hundreds of Tutsis seeking sanctuary from the horrific ethnic cleansing sweeping across Rwanda. When the Interahamwe Hutu militia arrived, the charges allege the nuns them with petrol and looked on as thousands of men, women and children were burned alive.
Aiding the reporter are soldier and guide Paul (Abubaker Salim), deeply suspicious of this uninformed outsider globally broadcasting his views about something he has no direct knowledge of. We also soon meet his friend Dusabi (Kevin Golding) who, as the only known survivor of the massacre, might be the key to the truth of what really happened.
Charles functions as our viewpoint character, his opinion and emotional state roughly linked to that of the audience. His role, as laid-back impartial interrogator, is to unearth some truth behind the multiple stories he's presented with. Understandably, his initial reaction is to doubt that two nuns could perpetuate such an atrocity, figuring that they're merely useful scapegoats for wider crimes. But the more he learns the more his opinion changes, the aloof reporter gradually charting a moral black hole from which no light escapes.
The staging is minimalist but high impact. A wooden floor demarcates the edge of the stage and a semi-opaque series of plastic boards partially conceals the rear. The effect is that the scenery almost appears to bleed into the audience space, subtly eroding the fourth wall and emotionally involving us. The rear of the stage functions as a hazy window through time, dead characters appearing as hazy memories.
It's a hugely effective way to separate past from present, ably aided by Joshua Pharo's ambitious and perfectly executed lighting design. It's usually a bad sign to discuss lighting in a theatre review - generally suggesting you've run out of things to say - here it's an integral part of proceedings, with key characters lit in bold, primary coloured chiaroscuro. Elsewhere, subtle touches abound, from the gently moving lights flickering through wooden slats, to gradual dimming as we work through trauma, through claustrophobic sudden darknesses that coincide with emotional peaks.
But ultimately, all this top notch stagemanship comes in service to the uniformly extraordinary performances. It'sdifficult to single anyone out for special praise, but even so, Lynette Clarke and Akiya Henry as the two nuns are jawdroppingly amazing. The characters are an apparently paradoxical mix of spirituality, femininity and horrific cruelty, elements that seem impossible to knit together. Yet the two manage it swimmingly, gradually peeling back layers of deception and delusion to reveal their corroded souls.
Credit too to Kevin Golding, whose recounting of the massacre is so disturbing and evocative left the audience so stunned you could hear pin drop. Dusabi is a broken man, his rheumy eyes and slumped posture speaking of a man who is almost literally the walking dead. When he finally launches into his testimony the lighting drops, he asks the reporter to close his eyes, and walks 'us' through the experience. As he did so the hair stood up on the back of my neck and my palms became clammy. Anything that achieves that is something special, a moment up there with anything I've seen on stage in the last few years.
Outright recommending Sense of an Ending is a tricky proposition. This production has the power to ruin people's nights. As I lay down to sleep last night I couldn't get it out of my head and it was the first thing I thought of when I awoke. But it's a stunningly effective piece of drama, exploring the very limits of human behaviour, morality and, eventually and blessedly, forgiveness. This is by no means an easy experience, but it is a tremendously important one.
★★★★★
Sense of an Ending is at Theatre503 until 6th June. Tickets here.
Sunday, November 10, 2013
Sunday, November 10, 2013
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This is the crux of this show; a sometimes hilarious, sometimes depressing and always coldly furious analysis of the work of aid organisations in Africa. Jane Bussmann isn't the first person you'd expect to carry out this vivisection. She worked as a writer for The Fast Show, Brass Eye, South Park, Smack the Pony and Jam (among others), then moved to California, where she was sucked into a quicksand of fatuous celebrity gossip journalism. Sent off to interview Britney Spears and Paris Hilton, she'd have to file a piece even if they never showed up. As far as existential crises go, writing fictional interviews about practically fictional people is a pretty decent one..
There's only so much meaningless bullshit you can stack on someone's shoulders before their knees buckle and it all comes crashing down in a rancid heap. So, in a Sam Beckett style quantum leap, she left ephemera and plonked herself down in Uganda. Her brief was to profile US conflict negotiator John Prendergast, but by the time she'd hopped off the plane he'd sodded off elsewhere. Stuck in a remote town in Uganda with no subject Bussmann figured that having been handed lemons, she may as well make lemonade. So she decided to start investigating Joseph Kony, the Lord's Resistance Army and his kidnapping of child soldiers. Pretty tart lemonade.
These experiences were chronicled in her book The Worst Date Ever, published in 2009. Now Bussmann, currently living in Mombasa, is using this experience as a springboard and decided to expose the corruption and hypocrisy of the aid industry. Bono and Geldof are Cunts argues that the aid these agencies provide is not just mired in bureaucracy; not just applied in the wrong ways; not just having a short-term effect; but intrinsically bad those it's supposed to be helping. This is a ballsy position and makes the bleeding heart Guardian supplement reading part of me instinctively recoil in horror. "B-but, those starving kids I saw on that tube advert, they need just a pound to get a goat! Just one pound! And I have so many pounds!"
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| This credit card will save Africa. |
Bussmann responds like a Hydra, a panoply of snapping, angry jaws tearing bloody chunks out of these arguments. First for the chopping block is the paternalist notion that Africa is in need of "saving". Western media loves to infantilise Africa, presenting us an image of an irresponsible, diseased and desperate place just that can't be trusted to govern itself. We're shown lists of words those in the West associate with Africa and but for a few exceptions they're all "war", "disease", "famine" and so on. That Africa can only exist with a constant infusion of aid transforms the continent into a patient on life support, unfit to stand on its own two feet.
Conseqeuently her next argument is that, consciously or not, the aid agencies perpetuate the very problems they combat. The example given is the response to the Rwandan genocide. As refugees flooded across the borders into refugee camps the aid agencies began to distribute food. Unfortunately they failed to identify the huge number of killers among the refugees, so they were fed, watered and given salaries - using the camps as military training bases to get back on their feet. This process became known as "feeding the killers", the food aid being withheld to punish the enemies of the leadership, reward supporters, distorting the numbers of refugees to get more food, and even forcing the refugees to pay a tax on their aid. Anyone who spoke up against this structure or tried to explain to aid workers was subject to intimidation or even murder. Médecins Sans Frontières later stated "this humanitarian operation was a total ethical disaster" or more bluntly, a big ol' fuck up.
This example demonstrates that of blindly throwing money at a situation you don't fully understand is a very bad idea. It's important to note that Bussmann isn't wholly opposed to charity, just to the self-aggrandising nature of monolithic aid companies. She reserves specific venom for extravagant spending, pointing out that UNICEF workers travel business class, glugging down champagne and posh nuts as, hundreds of miles below, the people they're supposed to be helping continue to starve. Stories are recounted of senior UN workers who happily profess that they "can't tell the difference between black people", of huge hardship allowances given to those suffering through the daily misery of life in a modern, cosmopolitan African city, of 'help wanted' notices for people to clean out their swimming pools
Viewed in the harshest light, these huge aid organisations have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo of Africa as a famine-ridden hellhole. Bussmann points out that you don't see banks in African countries collapsing and societies collapsing into austerity, arguing that the continent is going through financial boom times. Ultimately, her position is that Africa is a continent that requires investment rather than aid, that the perpetuation of a negative image discourages investment and this, in the long term, is harmful to African economic development and therefore harmful to the people. The ideal conclusion would be self-sufficient, politically independent African countries free from the yoke of Western paternalism and fully able to solve their internal problems, whatever they may be.
I've got some reservations about the idea that the goal of African economic development should be an emulation of Western capitalism and it sends a shiver through my socialist soul to hear the establishment of a consumerist bourgeoisie espoused as a positive thing. Like aid, foreign investment comes with its own shackles and a country at the mercy of the free market is existing in a questionable state of freedom. There's a whiff of trickle-down economics theory too, Bussmann essentially arguing that the consequence of rich Africans buying luxury cars and building swanky apartment buildings means that those living in poverty will see their standards of living rise.
At this point I should also point out that despite all the war crimes, economic theory and corruption this is a really funny show. Bussmann's not afraid of heading to some fucking dark places, showing us her 'rapron' (an apron created by rape victims) and arguing that Geldof would have provided catering services to Auschwitz. Bussmann's fury is such that, while the comedy is pitch-black, there were portions of the show with little laughter. This show was the final performance at the One World Media Festival, and there were some stony, not-particularly-happy looking faces in the crowd. I realised that some of the people she's railing against are more than likely likely to be in attendance By way of an example, while waiting to get into the venue I was explaining what I'd heard about Bob Geldof tax arrangements only to be interrupted by Geldof's accountant's wife - who was anxious to set me straight about the tax payments of Sir Bob.
Bussmann's show shone a light on an unhappy hypocrisy here. The walls were plastered with photos of unhappy Bangladeshi men standing in rivers full of poisoned fish, bodies plucked from collapsed factories and garbage piled up in slumtowns. Meanwhile in London we're sipping on free ice-cold beer, placing us on the exact spectrum of charity-funded luxury that the show rails against. So, the conclusion I took away with me was that intelligent, precise application of charity is helpful. But the vague, monolithic aid agencies' primary function is to pop a sticking plaster on wounded liberal hearts, administer a painkiller that washes away the guilt of Western privilege and give us a way for us to compartmentalise Africa as a unsolvable, intractable, neverending problem.
Bono and Geldof are responsible for the propagation of a stereotype of Africans as poor, dumb, hungry and violent - an infantilised global 'problem child'. A continent in need of a white saviours to descend from the sky and solve their problems by the sheer grace of their presence. For this, and much else, Bussmann is right - they are cunts.
'Bono & Geldof are Cunts' is at the Soho Theatre from Mon 18 - Sat 23 November, 7.30pm, tickets £15 (£12.50) available here.
Tuesday, October 15, 2013
Tuesday, October 15, 2013
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Captain Phillips is the tale of four brave, doomed Somali sailors. These are men that spend their days trapped in a nightmarish sand-blasted hell with an infinite desert behind them and an infinite ocean in front. This is a world where the life expectancy is a smidge over 50 years, where power comes down the barrel of an AK-47 and where life is about as cheap as it gets.
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
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‘Just Me, You and the Silence’ by Judy Adong is a play with noble aims, and one which sets its sights high. It's about LGBT rights in Uganda, one of the most cripplingly repressive places in the world to be gay or lesbian. Homosexual activity, both male and female, is illegal, and gays and lesbians must live with routine discrimination and legal restrictions. There is also an underlying risk of physical harassment; newspapers such as ‘Red Pepper’ and ‘Rolling Stone’ have published lists of names and addresses of gay Ugandans while calling for them to executed. One of the people named, David Kato, a prominent LGBT rights and advocacy officer for SMUG (Sexual Minorities Uganda) was beaten to death with a hammer in his home in January 2011. On top of all this misery, there's been repeated attempts to introduce legislation popularly known as the “Kill the Gays bill”, which calls for the death penalty for anyone committing ‘the offence of aggravated homosexuality’.
This is not a very bright and breezy situation, to say the least. Imagine what it is like to live in constant fear of your safety, never knowing who to trust and where members of your government are actively seeking to implement legislation that might result in you standing, rope resting around your shoulders, black hood on head, hearing the muffled sounds of people around you and then the soft click of the trapdoor opening and sudden weightlessness and then? The best you could hope for is they kill you cleanly. So when I went out on a chilly November night to see a play about LGBT issues in Uganda I wasn’t expecting a very cheery night out.
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| Not cool guys! |
And yet I laughed my head off nearly all the way through it. It’s a consciously funny play from start to finish, and ridiculously entertaining. This was in many ways a huge relief. I try to keep informed as to what’s going on in the African LGBT community, and I care deeply about the issues underlying situations like those currently happening in Uganda. So before seeing the play I was worrying what I’d write about it if it was awful, or even if it was just crushingly miserable throughout. Adding to this mild sense of dread was that this wasn’t even a full production. It was a benefit reading, which means uncostumed actors standing in a row with lecterns in front of them and reading from scripts, as far as I could tell totally unrehearsed. So if a play has flaws, they're only going to be exaggerated.
Fortunately Adong clearly knows what the hell she’s doing. Vile though it is, much of the language, rhetoric and logic behind the “Kill the Gays Bill” is ridiculous enough to stray into the realm of the darkly funny. If you want to prick somebody’s self-importance, then making them into a figure of fun is one of the more effective ways of doing it. Here, Adong deftly confronts the supporters of these monstrous bills with the logical consequences of their actions.
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| It's horrifying. But language like this has got to be ripe for satire. |
‘Just Me, You and the Silence’ tells the story of a Ugandan MP named Jacob Obina (seemingly based on David Bahati MP) and his family. Jacob and his wife Grace are aspirational social climbers and Jacob sees introducing a strict anti-homosexuality bill as his ticket to a life of luxury and fame. His cohorts in this are Pastor Ddumba (based on Martin Ssempa) and Mary Rose who run a church, and Buntu Muntu (an analogue for Simon Lokodo), a government minister. All see this bill as a way to propel them on a wave of popular sentiment forward in life. Less enthusiastic are Jacob's two sons: Giden just wants to be left alone to get on with a budding music career, and Mathias wants to escape to New York to attend university.
What drives the narrative is that Mathias is secretly gay. He’s torn between loyalty to his mother and father, who are wholly reliant on the passing of the anti-gay laws for financial security, and his activist friends Victoria and Thomas who are underground LGBT political activists.
If this unlikely situation were played seriously it would feel pretty contrived and cloying. But Adong recognises the farcical elements inherent to the situation, and almost every twist and turn the story takes is milked for laughs. I thought it was interesting that those trying to enact the anti-gay legislation are not necessarily portrayed as cackling, cartoon villains. They merely see this bill as the most expedient way to get what they want out of life. Jacob in particular is a likeable and funny man, which makes it very jarring when he slips into rabidly anti-gay language. This humanising process is a clever way to approach the situation. An aggressive front-on attack would be totally justified and very cathartic but also unlikely to change anyone’s mind. But while the play never shirks from presenting a powerful and convincing argument it does so with a relatively light touch, and with good humour.
In fact, I was so taken aback by how funny the play was and how readily the audience embraced it as a comedy that for a while I felt a bit uneasy. We are laughing at situations that, while they may sound utterly ridiculous to the ears of a London theatre audience, are deadly serious to a Ugandan gay person desperately frightened of being outed.
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| Judy Adong |
The genesis production was when Adong was confronted by the discrepancy between what Ugandan politicians and media said gay people were like, and her personal experience of meeting and working a gay man:
“This experience made me see that the value of a human being is not measured by his or her sexuality. It also made me realise that one day I could wake up and find someone I knew and loved being put to the noose and I wouldn’t be able to do anything. Like so many Ugandans, I had been in denial that anyone I knew could be gay.” – Judy Adong
The notion of the homosexual as the other, the outsider or the interloper seems to run right through the anti-gay propaganda put forward by the church and state. Gay people are painted as un- African and as trying to actively convert people’s children to the ‘gay cause’. We see the characters in this play actively engaging in this othering, explaining in a wickedly funny sequence how to ‘spot a gay man’ by his clothes or behaviour. All the while, the father in the play unknowingly holds up his gay son Mathias as a shining example of African manhood. We have it demonstrated to us in the clearest possible way the consequences of assuming that it's other people’s children or family members who are gay. It's this message that stands out over all else, and the play asks: how would you feel if it was your son or daughter whose neck was in the noose?
Its important to consider why this notion of the destructive other in society has such a strong pull in Ugandan society. Uganda is a former British colony, gaining independence from Britain in 1962 and like many former colonies is fiercely (and in my opinion rightly) protective of its right to self-governance. Interference from the West is regarded with intense suspicion, and financial aid often comes with strings attached. Gay rights are commonly viewed as a prime example of Western cultural imperialism; at best an example of an overly secular too-liberal West, and at worst an active attempt to poison the well of African masculinity. This allows anti-gay campaigners to seductively frame their arguments as an integral part of Ugandan or pan-African nationalism.
Adong exposes the hypocrisy of this argument through the character of Pastor Ddumba. He is shown as being in the thrall of a US megachurch who keep him on a tight leash through their funding of his church. Pastor Ddumba is generally fairly authoritative throughout most of the play, so it’s pretty funny to see him become so obsequious and grovelling whenever he has to talk to his US financier over the phone. This relationship seems to be based on the real-life links between the Nevada Canyon Ridge megachurch, and Martin Ssempa, who Ddumba parodies. The argument goes that the US evangelical right sees the war on homosexuality in the US as pretty much a lost cause, and are far happier to fight a proxy war on homosexuality in Africa. So, we see him going from decrying foreign interference in one scene, to frantically licking the boot of the US evangelicals in the next. What’s nice is that the play never preaches this to us, but any thinking person watching it can draw their own conclusions pretty easily. The most persuasive thinker we know, after all, is ourselves.
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| From the Ugandan Gay Pride Parade (!!) in 2012 - these are very brave people. |
Considering that these actors who had very little (if any) rehearsal time, the quality of the performances was excellent. Deserving particular praise is David Gyasi as Jacob, and Arnold Oceng as his son Giden. Both of them very quickly defined their characters not just as well-rounded, but also very as likeable people. Even from behind a lectern and with a script in their hands they gave us a peek into the physicality of these characters, which makes the play that much funnier and the characters more relatable. I had feared that a read through of a play would be a dry, academic exercise, but they breathed life into the story even with very limited resources.
Despite this being a very fast-moving, entertaining play there are a few slow patches. At various points the play lapses into fantasy sequences where we get a visualisation of a particular character’s fantasy life. So for example we see Grace, Jacob’s wife dreaming of being interviewed as First Lady and treated as an iconic political and cultural figure. It’s a nice way of getting into the character’s heads and helping us understand their motivations, but these scenes bring the narrative to a screeching halt, and ultimately we're being shown things we should have already worked out for ourselves. The only other criticism I’d make is that throughout the play we have someone to the side of the stage reading aloud the stage directions. This was fine, but in the final moments of the play he read out a direction for a minute’s silence. I can’t see any reason why they couldn’t actually do the minute’s silence in the read through rather than simply tell us about it. Not having any silence before the end totally undercut the drama and profundity of the last line of the play, which is a shame.
But these are minor criticisms and this was a wonderful night. Judy Adong has provided gay rights campaigners in Uganda with a potent weapon in their fight against homophobia. The play is funny and entertaining while also having a white-hot core of anger and righteousness. Her ambition is to perform this play in Kampala, Uganda and I firmly believe that one day she will achieve her dream. As this work amply demonstrates, it is not homosexuality that tears the fabric of society apart; it is bigotry, divisiveness and ignorance.
It’s a relief to be able to highly recommend this play not just because I wholeheartedly believe in its message, but because it’s also highly insightful and hilarious satire with excellent characterisation.
Many thanks to the wonderful people at the Old Vic who donated their beautiful theatre for the reading and to the actors and production staff who gave up their free time to work unpaid for our entertainment. If anyone would like to know more about this issue please check out the Kaleidoscope Trust. They organised this night and are an excellent organisation that does sterling and brave work.
Saturday, June 2, 2012
Saturday, June 2, 2012
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| Bob Geldof |
“Why am I seeing Bob Geldof?” ran through my mind over and over again. “Why am I seeing Bob Geldof?” I didn’t even know he still did gigs. I’ve only had 3 hours sleep the night before. “Why am I seeing Bob Geldof?”.
What do I know about Bob Geldof? I know about his work with Live Aid and Live 8. I know he was in a band called the Boomtown Rats. I know he has a daughter, Peaches Geldof. I know he doesn’t like Mondays very much. That’s about it. So this begs the question: “Why am I seeing Bob Geldof?”
The answer is this: because almost nobody wants to go and see Bob Geldof. I should have taken it as a bad sign when I couldn’t get anybody to go with me. When I said I was going to see Bob Geldof they looked at me quizzically as if to ask "Why would anyone want to go and see Bob Geldof?"
So I find myself standing in a small crowd at Islington Assembly Hall. Ticket sales have apparently not been hot. The room is just under half full, people perch uneasily on radiators around the room. I spy that elusive breed, the Bob Geldof fan. I see people with ‘Geldof’ emblazoned on their t-shirts, they’re cooing over a woman who’s doling them out of a cardboard box for a tenner each. I flit amongst the crowd nervously, not finding anywhere comfortable to stand.
The support band is on as I arrive, and the guitarist begins an anecdote about his wet trousers. This turns into what I can only assume is a joke that the mere sight of Bob Geldof induces him to ejaculate uncontrollably.
Then the main attraction appears, it’s Bob Geldof! He’s a stringy, jangly, loose-limbed, simian kinda guy, hopping from one foot to the other in a gentle, elegant sway. He smoothly sways and flows around the stage, light footed and strangely bendy. He’s dressed in a smart grey suit with a black shirt, and his hair is a scraggly mop of grey. For a 60 year old he has a strange yogic grace to him. When his hair is over his face, and he’s hunched over the microphone he could be a man of 25 or 30.
Offsetting this slightly vampiric figure at stage front are his band. They look every inch their age, and have that professional musician aura to them. They’re running on autopilot. Every grimace, every body-shake, every “yeah man” and spontaneous hand clap seem to be straight from the professional musician playbook. These seem like men for whom laying down a funky bluesy guitar solo comes as easy as breathing. If Bob Geldof was surrounded by younger musicians he’d begin to look slightly creepy, as it is, this gathering seems to just make him look cooler in his sharp suit. For example, his lead guitarist appears to be wearing a woollen cardigan.
But there is one member of his band that stands out above all the rest. The resident fiddler. He looks like he could crush a man’s head like an over-ripe grape. My god but he is a mean looking, crumple-browed motherfucker. The kind of Tony Soprano looking guy with those thick sweaty creases at the back of his neck. I don’t get to see his back, but I bet it’s like a hair jungle there. Towards the middle of the show he removes his jacket, and proudly stands there in a vest. It has unmentionable stains pockmarking it, there are two holes distressingly near the nipple. The way he smiles at Bob Geldof makes you think he’s got some dirt on him. Bob Geldof lamely tries to introduce him, explaining that he’s from Zimbabwe. The crowd doesn’t buy it. Try harder, Bob Geldof.
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| Shit! He's seen me! |
I probably should say something about the music. It’s alright, actually. It’s a kind of driving, bluesy sort of rocky Irish folky kind of thing. I only know one Boomtown Rats song, the famous one, so I have no idea which songs are new and which are 10 years old. One, ‘Banana Republic’ stands out with a nice bouncy has a nice ska-y feel. Bob Geldof never gives any song less than a good go though, and often begins scatting away, a string of garbled phonemes spilling from his lips. He sounds an awful lot like modern Bob Dylan, with the scratchy road-worn “seen it all” rasp. I like it actually, it’s the kind of voice that seems to have a story to tell.
We get some monologues peppered throughout the songs. He’s a good talker, and runs a nice line in self-deprecation. He even makes light of the fact that there’s not many people here, which is a brave thing for a performer to acknowledge. A quick potted history of the Troublesworks quite well to set the scene as we begin 'Banana Republic'. However, a detailed account of successful yam-growing in the African town of Harbo runs on seemingly forever. It’s slightly galling to stand through ten minutes of a story about how some boiled yams cheered him up, followed by a song about said yams where the chorus is: “Sweet Yams in the fields of Harbo / Made me feel better(better)”. We get it Bob Geldof, you really liked the yams.
At times you get the occasional fleeting sensation that this concert might be more for Bob Geldof’s own sake than ours. He always looks like he’s enjoying himself on stage, and his posing and dancing has a certain air of innocent self satisfaction. A secret smile plays across his face at times when he grabs the microphone and yells into it while striking a pose. “Still got it”, he seems to be saying.
Bob Geldof clearly seems himself as a musician first, and a philanthropist second, while I think for most people it’s the other way around. He also didn’t seem to be overly upset that not many people showed up. I looked up his wikipedia page mid-concert to try and find out a bit about his current musical career. It was here that I found out that he’s worth over $70,000,000. Suddenly it all slots into place.
Now, I don’t necessarily think this concert is a vanity project, but I suspect it may be something close. Here is a man who has worldwide respect, who can sleep soundly at night knowing that thousands of people are alive thanks to his efforts, happy that he is that rare thing, a rich man whose existence has made the world a better place. What more could he want? What he started out craving - musical success. In his mind he has always been and always will be a professional musician.
There’s nothing really wrong with any of this. Even rich men get the blues. Bob Geldof is a big and easy target to poke fun at. He has done a lot of good in the world*. Maybe he deserves to get up on stage and for two hours be the rock star he so desperately wants to be. A small amount of clapping and cheering from me is a small price to pay to make an old man happy.
I should add that maybe I’d be a little more critical if I’d actually paid to get in.
*but I don't like this weird anger over his taxes
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