Stitched Up

I been planning to go to the AbbeyFest theatre tonight for Stitching, but I have been saved by Google.

From The Guardian in 2002:

Barely one day into the Edinburgh festival, audiences known for their cast-iron stomachs have staged their first walkouts on grounds of taste.

People left Stitching, a new play by the Scottish writer Anthony Neilson that describes a man masturbating over pictures of women being herded into a gas chamber in Auschwitz. A character fantasises about re-enacting the Moors murders, filming her partner sexually abusing the victims' mothers and putting the footage on the web. She mutilates and stitches up her vagina to the strains of "We will stitch it" from the soundtrack to the children's TV programme Bagpuss.

I think I can do without that particular catharsis, though it seems to be doing well in New York. How unsurprising to find that the useless Mark Ravenhill is a friend and fan of the author.

Festival sponsor I may be, but "include me out".

P.S. Regarding the play's needlework, I seem to recall Ornella Muti had the same idea in 1981's Storie di ordinaria follia, so it's not as if it's even particularly original. Gimme Ms Muti as Princess Aura in 1980's Flash Gordon any day.