![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/0_JS406190696.jpg\")
<\/p>\nA 60s band takes centre stage<\/p>\n
Philosophy of the World is now at the Bristol Old Vic<\/p>\n
Jokes, gang killings, breasts, music. Jokes, gang killings, breasts, music. The energy and repetitive beat of Philosophy of the World had audiences laughing, bemused, and sometimes completely shocked.<\/p>\n
The play – created by trio Nora Alexander, Dora Lynn, and Kat Cory – has an urgent pace throughout, with the repetition of jokes, music, the actors throwing their sports bras off, and attacking their father (who symbolises all patriarchy) tying the sometimes jumbled plot together nicely.<\/p>\n
The 70-minute play is a tribute to 60s band The Shaggs \u2014 an accidentally avant-garde band famous for making one of Kurt Cobain\u2019s favourite albums.<\/p>\n
And in the same way that The Shaggs were brilliant, so too is this show. Both ignore the basic rules of what is expected of them.<\/p>\n
The actors attempt to be bold in the words they use, their style of clothes, and the way they present their ideas to the audience.<\/p>\n
After two tense acts, the finale is by far the best. Raw chaos and beautiful anarchy unravel on stage in three separate, yet united, forms of performance. Cory is drawing intricate designs on a blackboard, while Alexander builds tension by thrashing out her anger out on drums.<\/p>\n
But it is Lynn who is the star of the scene, with her provocative ten-minute monologue summing up everything that has just unravelled and why what happened in the 60s still matters today.<\/p>\n
The speech picks out the sad irony of the fact The Shaggs, who were forced to leave school and practise non-stop by their father, who wanted them to become famous, only later reached stardom because other men decided they liked their sound.<\/p>\n
At points, you might struggle to hear what is being said, or a gang attack perhaps runs for longer than you are comfortable with, but by the end everything falls fittingly into place, like a Shakespearean comedy where all the mix-ups and false identities are uncovered. By the end, you feel completely onboard with the chaos and madness collapsing in front of you, because it suddenly all makes sense.<\/p>\n
Packed with humour and thought-provoking motifs, this play has an energy and style that feels completely fresh, one that also feels important to be a part of.<\/p>\n
Philosophy of the World is on at the Old Vic until Saturday, May 16. Tickets start at \u00a315.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A 60s band takes centre stage Philosophy of the World is now at the Bristol Old Vic Jokes,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":960061,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8818],"tags":[381,28103,748,393,4884,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-960060","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bristol","8":"tag-bristol","9":"tag-bristol-old-vic","10":"tag-britain","11":"tag-england","12":"tag-great-britain","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116574897113669579","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/960060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=960060"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/960060\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/960061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=960060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=960060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=960060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}