My main issue was that documenting every single act of kindness, capturing it in a photo surely takes something away from the sentiment of the act itself.
Her movement was sparked from the 2011 London riots. We are shown footage of these events before some heroic music comes on in the background and Russell starts a long list of ‘What can I do...’ about everything from looting, to eight year olds in bras and twerking.
Russell has enlisted the help of her partner Gareth Brierley on stage, he acts as everything from the tech guy, to characters she met and a kind of overbearing narrator figure, who occasionally interjects something like, ‘And why did you do that Bernadette?’ Together they go through the good deeds she did and the various people she met representing each of them with shoes – a strange choice considering the associations this might have for some people. Their interaction was a little bit Punch and Judy (without the domestic violence) but the style was embedded in the slapstick and left a lot to be desired.
My main issue was that documenting every single act of kindness, capturing it in a photo surely takes something away from the sentiment of the act itself. At one point Russell refers to other ‘kindness businesses’. I left wondering what was more worrying, the social implications of the riots, or the fact that people are capitalising on a good deed. But as businesses to be in go – there are certainly worse ones than kindness.
