“Hope is the thing with feathers, that perches in the soul, and sings the tune without the words, and never stops at all”
– Emily Dickinson

“Thou wast not born for death, immortal bird!
No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown …”
– John Keats, Ode To A Nightingale

“No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings”
– William Blake

“Just by the wooden brig a bird flew up,
Frit by the cowboy as he scrambled down
To reach the misty dewberry”
– John Clare, The Yellowhammer’s Nest

“If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, we have at least to consider the possibility that we have a small aquatic bird of the family anatidae on our hands”
– Douglas Adams

“Be like the bird who, pausing in her flight awhile on boughs too slight, feels them give way beneath her, and yet sings, knowing she has wings”
– Victor Hugo

“God gives every bird his worm, but He does not throw it into the nest”
– PD James

“Poetry is like a bird, it ignores all frontiers”
– Yevgeny Yevtushenko

“Hail to thee, blithe spirit!
Bird thou never wert”
– Percy Bysse Shelley, To a Skylark

“I caught this morning morning’s minion, kingdom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn falcon”
– Gerard Manley Hopkins, The Windhover

“A bird does not sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song”
— Maya Angelou

From post War Germany to post Brexit Britain

STUDENTS from Arts University Bournemouth are heading for the Palace Court Theatre from 20th to 22nd March for the first production of 2025. Director David O’Shea has chosen Friedrich Durrenmatt’s The Visit, but updated its setting from the original post War German to a post Brexit Britain drowning under the cost of living crisis.

Set in a decrepit and depressed town, there’s a sudden glimmer of hope when news breaks that the local girl-made-billionaire is returning for a nostalgic visit to the place of her youth. Welcome signs are painted, the town choir is practising its tunes, and her long-lost lover is rehearsing the town’s plea for financial support.

But the lady has an offer of her own … one the town can’t, but must, refuse.

The classic play poses the question “What would YOU do for money?”

To find out more, visit the Palace Court or the AUB performing arts websites. Performances start at 7.30 nightly with a 2.30 Saturday matinee.

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The Fine Times Recorder

From post War Germany to post Brexit Britain