reviews of destroy powerpoint
What's On Stage Edinburgh 2009
It’s safe to say that the title of Destroy PowerPoint is distinctly misleading. As David Gaffney confesses at the beginning, he might have started off thinking PowerPoint was a little evil, but in the end, he came to see the presentation software as something that liberates creativity. In this respect, the play is more a celebration of the possibilities of PowerPoint than a call to arms for us to storm the offices of Microsoft and banish it forever. An exercise in storytelling, Destroy PowerPoint is made up of a collection of short stories all centring around a PowerPoint presentation. There are stories of vengeance, of love, of the mind-numbing routine of office life. Some are more compelling than others, though in Kicking The Whale, Gaffney’s conceit reaches its peak as a disenchanted employee uses PowerPoint to break free. There’s something oddly beautiful about the PowerPoint presentations Gaffney uses to illustrate his tales. In King Of PowerPoint, which acts as something of an homage to office communication through the years, there’s a distinct romance to the smudged felt-tip acetates which flash across the screen.
City Life
When life gives you lemons, the hackneyed saying goes, you make lemonade. When management inflicts PowerPoint on you, you subvert and contort it into joyful literature... David Gaffney’s wonderful hour of storytelling does not do what it promises, it does not destroy PowerPoint. Rather, it strangely invigorates the forms. It reveals, with brilliant, luminous use of text and picture, a minor urban folk art, germinating out of the mundane soil of office life. Anyone who has served their sentence as a temp knows that the office work place is always rife with currents of sexual tension and emotional, professional and intellectual frustration. PowerPoint is an art form with rules, most of which David Gaffney instantly points out he has broken. All the text of his stories eventually end up on the screen, revealed in various sequential methods. In seeking to subsume PowerPoint, it seems that David Gaffney has become its master. The result is that the hour spent in the conference room in the back of Manchester Art Gallery is, like those interminable, PowerPoint centred training days, actually a pleasant communal reading experience.
The Scotsman
Gaffney is a lovely, unselfconscious performer with a great artistic vision.
The Edinburgh Guide
Gaffney has the graphical talents to prepare some pretty amazing slide packs as demonstrated in his show - combined with his way with words as a writer, the slide packs themselves are nothing short of fantastic.
Three Weeks Magazine
David Gaffney may have succeeded in doing something new. By fitting storytelling to the rather awkward office medium of PowerPoint, he has struck a blow for those who resent its daily use. The stories themselves were thoughtful, short and full of a wry humour. It was amazingly simple yet effective, and it offered a fresh and interactive medium over which to share a story. If you believe in rewarding creativity, donate the time you'd normally spend on destroying PowerPoint to this. (four stars)
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It’s safe to say that the title of Destroy PowerPoint is distinctly misleading. As David Gaffney confesses at the beginning, he might have started off thinking PowerPoint was a little evil, but in the end, he came to see the presentation software as something that liberates creativity. In this respect, the play is more a celebration of the possibilities of PowerPoint than a call to arms for us to storm the offices of Microsoft and banish it forever. An exercise in storytelling, Destroy PowerPoint is made up of a collection of short stories all centring around a PowerPoint presentation. There are stories of vengeance, of love, of the mind-numbing routine of office life. Some are more compelling than others, though in Kicking The Whale, Gaffney’s conceit reaches its peak as a disenchanted employee uses PowerPoint to break free. There’s something oddly beautiful about the PowerPoint presentations Gaffney uses to illustrate his tales. In King Of PowerPoint, which acts as something of an homage to office communication through the years, there’s a distinct romance to the smudged felt-tip acetates which flash across the screen.
City Life
When life gives you lemons, the hackneyed saying goes, you make lemonade. When management inflicts PowerPoint on you, you subvert and contort it into joyful literature... David Gaffney’s wonderful hour of storytelling does not do what it promises, it does not destroy PowerPoint. Rather, it strangely invigorates the forms. It reveals, with brilliant, luminous use of text and picture, a minor urban folk art, germinating out of the mundane soil of office life. Anyone who has served their sentence as a temp knows that the office work place is always rife with currents of sexual tension and emotional, professional and intellectual frustration. PowerPoint is an art form with rules, most of which David Gaffney instantly points out he has broken. All the text of his stories eventually end up on the screen, revealed in various sequential methods. In seeking to subsume PowerPoint, it seems that David Gaffney has become its master. The result is that the hour spent in the conference room in the back of Manchester Art Gallery is, like those interminable, PowerPoint centred training days, actually a pleasant communal reading experience.
The Scotsman
Gaffney is a lovely, unselfconscious performer with a great artistic vision.
The Edinburgh Guide
Gaffney has the graphical talents to prepare some pretty amazing slide packs as demonstrated in his show - combined with his way with words as a writer, the slide packs themselves are nothing short of fantastic.
Three Weeks Magazine
David Gaffney may have succeeded in doing something new. By fitting storytelling to the rather awkward office medium of PowerPoint, he has struck a blow for those who resent its daily use. The stories themselves were thoughtful, short and full of a wry humour. It was amazingly simple yet effective, and it offered a fresh and interactive medium over which to share a story. If you believe in rewarding creativity, donate the time you'd normally spend on destroying PowerPoint to this. (four stars)
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