17 BORDER CROSSINGS

★★★★★ “Phillips is a fluid, shifting storyteller, something of a conjuror. As a piece of performance it is technically brilliant, dizzyingly so. Each episode is beautifully rendered, an act of transportation; he is effortlessly multilingual, cursing with aplomb in Serbian, mumbling in Arabic, purring in French as he snaps on a latex glove.” – THE STAGE

★★★★ “The polished piece is wise about the absurd, haphazard nature of borders and the ways in which a country’s immigration policy is a reflection of that nation’s self-image. Thus, in one sequence in 17 Border Crossings, Phillips contrasts the meticulously structured approach of the Israelis to the laid-back attitude of the Jordanian border guards he encounters further down the road. He recounts, with eye-watering precision, his experience of being cavity searched by the French and invokes the network of tunnels that divides Egypt from Gaza – with the punch-line being the delivery of a KFC takeaway rather than the expected cache of arms’. – THE TIMES

★★★★ “Powerful, vivid storytelling, both enjoyable and enlightening . . . well worth experiencing, for its wisdom, its poise, and its long view of a subject that now requires all the calm sense of perspective we can muster”. -THE SCOTSMAN

★★★★ “He’s a born raconteur, Phillips, capable, I’d guess, of making almost any material sing. These, however, are exquisite miniatures, full of life and character, and staged with an effortless ‘empty space’ theatricality. At one point, he recreates a Balinese coffee high merely by shaking a torch in front of his face, casting jittery, far-out shadows on the back wall. Planes, trains and automobiles materialise out of a table, a chair and a homemade lighting rig made of domestic lights. Nations are conveyed with a keen sense of simple specificity: sickly communist greens, sleazy red lights and perky Europop. He’s chased around Europe by Ace of Base”. – THE FEST