Christopher Green (I)

Tina C's 20:20 Vision review

If you get the chance to see Tina C's 20:20 Vision then don't miss it.

Tina C's Global Depression Tour preview

Starting tonight at 11pm on Radio 4 Christopher Green's country music legend Tina C investigates the financial crisis and looks for a solution to the global recession with help from economists and financial journalists, including Will Hutton, Paul Mason and Gillian Tett PM.

Ouch. This is funny. But uncomfortable. Christopher Green's acutely observant play stars Caroline Quentin as a feisty realist, underwhelmed by her life. She's taken to bed, intends to stay there, safe, protected, withdrawn. This permanent bedrest is to protect the world from her torrents of contagious emotion. Anyone who's lived a little will recognise her feelings and her domestic situation. It's her house but Rob, her partner, is also in it. And she's in the spare room in the second best bed where, as time drags by, she notices drawbacks.

In Christopher Green's comic one-woman drama Caroline Quentin stars as a spirited woman who has taken to her bed, permanently. At 39, she's feeling underwhelmed by life and has definitely decided not to have children. Retreating to the second-best-bed in the dingy spare room, she feels abandoned - her husband Rob hasn't even noticed. She's tried therapy and she's in pain but she's not changing her mind about motherhood, whatever anyone else might think. A poignant monologue that leaves you pondering the dilemmas facing all would-be parents.

Christopher Green's country superstar creation tours Australia. As a character, I'm afraid I find Tina C to be extremely irritating. Maybe that's the idea.

Tina C, country superstar and US presidential hopeful, is also the queen of doubles entendres. Even her name is a play on words: she hails from Nashville (Tennessee). Her alter ego is comedian Christopher Green but for the next four weeks there's no sign of him as Tina tours Australia, pushing the boundaries of good taste to the absolute limit. Her pronunciation of the words 'Aborogynal' and 'indigenous' introduces groins where they've never been spotted before. This is a comic creation in the style of Kenny Everett's Cupid Stunt. I love her, but she's not to everyone's taste.

It's sensible to parcel up the latest effusions from Christopher Green's alter ego, the American country superstar Tina C, in four 15-minute snatches. A little of her goes a long way. Green's ability to stay in character is impressive - as is his way with a pastiche country song, notably a highway song that's just a list of fast-food outlets - but Tina is essentially a three-joke character: there's the ignorant American joke; the condescension towards other, non-American, cultures joke; and the wilful mangling of English joke, which this time takes the form of the subtitle to the series - The Aborogynal Monologues. That's 'vagina' mixed with Aboriginal. If that floats your boat, listen on.