Stuff Happens

Product Information

An exciting new series written specifically for boys aged from seven to eleven . . . great additions for school libraries and for engaging reluctant boy readers. Outstanding!' Read Plus Scene 12: The NSC reassembles and Cheney says that the story should be known as the “Crisis at the UN” so that it is no longer about America's wrongdoing but instead makes it about the UN and whether they can deliver or not. [2] Hare's play is not a comprehensive treatment, and not an objective one (Blair and Powell get off much too easy, for example, and the jr. Bush remains a bit too distant and simplistically drawn), but a useful reminder and starting point. Carefully researched, and confident that: "Nothing in the narrative is knowingly untrue", Hare's play certainly feels documentary in character.

Our wellness culture and obsession with thinness compels many women to hang on to the smallest garments... Except for the slightly sententious and uninteresting final speech by an Iraqi, Stuff Happens is a play, not a polemic. (...) I like the way Hare scarcely touches on the inner life of his characters - their marriages, their families, their private dreams and wounds. This is an austere play, about the austere choices of politics. It looks unsentimentally at what happens when stuff happens." - Charles Moore, Daily Telegraph He condemns the media coverage for overblowing the extent of the looting and then failing to report as prominently that in fact only a small portion of Iraq's treasures were looted. The real figures make the familiar statements, but there are also some (believable) behind-the-scenes recreations.

Signup

But, Rumsfeld says: "While I made a few misstatements – in particular the one mentioned above – they were not common and certainly not characteristic. Other senior administration officials also did a reasonably good job of representing the intelligence community's assessments accurately in their public comments about Iraqi WMD, despite some occasionally imperfect formulations." People are really going through some stuff a lot of the time. You need a while to recover from each person’s story.” Conniving president Bush is clearly the bad guy, while Tony Blair is given perhaps more credit than he is due (and certainly shown to repeatedly be the victim of Bush's weasely maneuvers).

They are regularly opposed by one of the few genuinely nice people sighted at any point during the three hours. Colin Powell, as the writer is at pains to make clear, is almost unique in that he understands war from the sharp end. He is also both thorough and decent, which ill befits a man in his position. Enter no-nonsense Dubliner Emma Gleeson’s guide, Stuff Happens!. Like many of her peers, Gleeson, founder of the sustainable decluttering business Give Up Yer Auld Tings, offers plenty of practical advice on how to get an over-abundance of A, or a needless surplus of B, out of your house. But unlike many of her peers, she is also keen to get to the root, often ugly as it is, of just why we have so much stuff. In 2020, Andy Propst of Time Out dubbed Stuff Happens "one of the most impressive political dramas to emerge in recent memory" and ranked it the 30th greatest play of all time. [1] Characters [ edit ] George W. Bush David Hare's Stuff Happens has already become a chewed-over public event. But, after attending its Olivier press night, it also strikes me as a very good, totally compelling play: one that may not contain a vast amount of new information but that traces the origins of the Iraq war, puts it in perspective and at the same time astutely analyses the American body politic. (...) Hare avoids the trap of agitprop by cannily subverting the play's anti-war bias. (...) One comes out enriched and better informed." - Michael Billington, The Guardian However, the pleasure lies in seeing recent history, in which we all have a stake, enacted on Britain's most prominent public stage. Nicholas Hytner's production is also elegant and unfussy, with the cast seated on stage throughout and emerging, as required, to enact their part in the drama. And, in a vast cast, there are standout performances from Desmond Barrit as an ideologically-driven Cheney, Dermot Crowley as an assertive Rumsfeld, and Adjoa Andoh as an ice-cold Condoleezza Rice.

Retailers:

The great surprise of the show, however, is the way performance leads to reassessment of character. Bush, in many British eyes, is seen as some kind of holy fool or worse. But, through Hare's writing and Alex Jennings's performance, he emerges as a wily and skilful manipulator who plays the role of a bumbling pseudo-Texan but constantly achieves his desired ends. By contrast, Tony Blair is seen satirically: the hints of a moral crusader are there, but in Nicholas Farrell's performance, he emerges largely as a demented egoist obsessed by his own political standing. There may be some truth in this, but the play would be stronger if Hare admitted that Blair may have been propelled by idealistic motives. Rumsfeld says that two-and-a-half years later he had learned what happened during his interrogation. "I was surprised and troubled. Some of what took place sounded to me as if the interrogation plan may have gone beyond the techniques I approved." This shows that no matter the situation and even if Powell had said no the president had already made his decision. It seems in way that Bush is sometimes abusing his power to gain the upper hand of people and not a lot of people would disagree with the President of the United States of America. As for political maneuvering, this is shown as Rumsfeld telling the press indirectly that they don’t need the British and there is also a bit of deception, as he has no sense of regret in his words. We have internalised a narrative around clothing that if an item doesn’t fit or suit, your body is wrong for the clothes. Practise repeating that it’s the clothes that are wrong for your body, not the other way around.

Condoleezza Rice, nicely played by Adjoa Andoh, calmly schemes, all the time aided by Paul Wolfowitz, Ian Gelder and Dermot Crowley's Donald Rumsfeld. This advice isn’t about denying yourself anything,” she declares. “It’s about being more mindful in your shopping. It’s about enhancing your enjoyment around it. Sustainability has been framed within the language of deprivation for so long; what I’m saying is, ‘I’m trying to make you enjoy your life more’.” Rumsfeld is one of the most controversial figures of the Bush era and his autobiography has long been awaited. The Guardian obtained an advance copy. Instincts. Feelings. And behind them motives that are unclear even to the man who acts upon them. These are the forces of history as much as trade and oil are. That is why a playwright like David Hare can qualify as an excellent historian.

Select a format:

We don’t know if or when this production is coming to the West End but sign up to be the first to hear! Running Time Today most of physics, and almost all of science, is the study of events — things that happen in the world around us. But what exactly are events? It might seem like a silly question, but modern physics casts doubt on many of the concepts we commonly use to define events: the concept of time in which events play out, the idea of cause and effect that links them together, and the idea that Emma’s answer is mindful materialism which means being conscious of the global system behind stuff, appreciating the resources that are used to make it and accepting the responsibility of where our items will go once we are done with them. Gleeson soon realised that for many people overwhelmed by the prospect of decluttering, employing an impartial party was a big help. Yes, the things people feel guilty about,” she says. “Money spent on things that aren’t used, and inherited items that are unwanted. The reasons behind the guilt are likely universal.”