SOURCE: "Sex-lies on Videotape," in New Statesman and Society, Vol. 9, No. 401, May 3, 1996, p. 20.

In the following review, Weldon looks at the gender issues raised in Karaoke and Cold Lazarus, and evaluates the merit of these plays.

I watched four Potter Karaokes and Cold Lazaruses, at one sitting, and was, let me declare myself at once, absorbed, moved and exhilarated by the experience. Glued, as they say (or used to say when such things were more common), to the set. Writers' television once again.

What a relief. The technology serving the words on the page; actors obedient and trusting; producer and director as the writer's servants, not masters, not uppity, claiming moral authorship. A return to the old days, the opening years of the television age, when the box in the corner was seen as the key to social reform, personal enlightenment, and, believe it or not, the refreshment...