Theatre interview: Manipulate festival director Simon Hart on this year’s programme

These days, when people on the internet share an image or a news story they find particularly tragic, or appalling, or beyond belief, they often introduce it with the phrase, “No words”. It’s short for “no words can convey what I feel about this”; and it seems almost like a mantra for our time, an age of fake news when people often turn away in disgust from public language that seems like a vehicle for lies and spin.