THE FRANK PENGUIN

The Penguin is back — and he’s got stories to tell.

Alan Ayckbourn is often lauded as the master of middle-class misery, and to be fair, misery he delivers. But while his usual cocktail of dark humour and suburban despair can be sharp and unsettling in the right proportions, this particular brew tasted mostly flat and of structural misogyny.

Is there truly no escape from the humble fungus’s quiet culinary takeover? Surely it’s time for our gastronomic visionaries to show a little more vision and seek out a new, fleshy, plant-based medium on which to build their edible creations.

We have now been living in the throngs of the COVID-19 pandemic for over a year, and yet there still seems to be some people who are refusing to follow the official government and WHO advice.

I glanced down and saw an abstract caricature of a penguin, with large round protruding black eyes and a small mustard beak.