REVIEW GOOD SHOP BAD SHOP

GOOD SHOP BAD SHOP                                                                                                            Reviewed for Buzz Magazine.                                                                                              November 14th. 2001.

At first sight this didn’t look promising. Two blokes in ill-fitting suits loitering around the shopping arcade trying to get our attention with a megaphone . The rain didn’t help and neither did the stray dog that was sniffing around our legs. A long ribbon was tripping up passers by and an older couple near me  thought royalty was in the neighbourhood and sounded off a rich stream of invective. Brilliantly, the words – Cachau bant, dos I chwarae efo dy nain, ti’n llawn cachu combined perfectly with a riotous intro by the Super Furry Animals  inspiring a small scuffling mob to gather until a fight broke out. I am now a proud owner of a polaroid of the couple being manhandled by twenty resentful security staff who all looked a bit too young and fashionable to be professional  guards.

Later in the afternoon things settled a bit and we were treated to a shop lifting re-enactment performed to surveillance footage  loop of the earlier Ribbon Cutting mayhem. After a short  tea break we all enjoyed a  short ‘looting’ intervention based on archive photos.

At closing time we were all given bags full of old gestures and surplus ideas which we could bring back if we weren’t satisfied.

All thanks must go to John Rowley and Richard Huw Morgan of Good Cop Bad Cop and all their friends who turned a wet day drifting around the town centre into an inspirational event.

I am going back tomorrow to play The Game of Table and buy some Art from James Riley, Billy Childish, Ranko Ben, Elfyn Lewis and Pete Fowler and have signed up for the meditation on shopping classes.