Bussman's Holiday @ The Assembly Rooms

Jane Bussman's been done over, bad; chewed up and spat out by the corporate might of the media machine. Somewhat jaded after a paper she was freelancing for misquoted from an interview she'd done with untouchable Hollywood halfwit Ashton Kutcher, she suffered the consequences and a slight career re-evaluation was thrust upon her. What to do? Que a stint of travel journalism in Uganda, which entailed trapsing around after a reknowned peacekeeper seeking to reconcile an age-old conflict. Bussman adds humble quips and puns to a monologue of how she handled both the extreme culture shock and the harsh realities to be witnessed during the pilgrimage she inadvertently fell into. The comic relief adequately facilitates the communication of what would have, at least in part, been an otherwise harrowing tale. Uncovering scandal of a different sort, Bussman got more than she bargained for and she relates the story as well as can be expected for a show that appears so cryptic on its surface. Suck it and see. (Dave Kerr)