Spokesong

Set in and around a bicycle shop in Belfast, this wise and humorous play concerns Frank, the current operator of the shop started by his grandfather. Frank believes that all the world’s problems can be solved if people simply switch to bicycles for transportation. Like Brendan Behan and Bertolt Brecht, Stewart Parker uses songs to comment on the action. All are original except “Bicycle Built for Two,” sung by Frank to his girlfriend Daisy. The bicycle and the shop become an ingenious metaphor for the problems in Northern Ireland and, indirectly, about the problems of modern civilization.