Folken Britain

When Susan Harrison takes on a new persona she does so with her whole body – she seems to shrink and stretch before our eyes – transforming and transporting herself across social class, gender and species. It’s seamless and vaguely unnerving.

Harrison is not afraid to engage with the audience, but it’s all in good faith. She doesn’t ridicule her participants; instead choosing to use them as a spring board to expand upon her characters. The way she moulds a London rioter owned puppy (with an appropriate accent and vulnerable/aggressive demeanour) off a, presumably, foreign tourist is particularly well executed.

The pseudo-protest songs (there’s a re-written Billy Bragg in there), domestic politics and social commentary don’t detract from the story Harrison is trying to tell about the folksier nature of our land. A song involving Tony Blair and his 'first love' will leave you smiling nostalgically for the recent past. She’s somehow managed to capture something familiar, almost something… British.