North London's Hampstead Theatre has announced a 2009 season that will include the first stage work by television writer Ian Kennedy Martin, creator of The Sweeney. The Berlin Hanover Express, which opens in March, is set in Ireland's Berlin consulate in 1942 and explores the implications of a country remaining neutral at a time of war.
All of which, Notebook cannot help but point out, was brilliantly summed up by Larry David in an episode of his wonderful sitcom, Curb Your Enthusiasm. David shows a little girl a Swiss Army knife. "Do you know what Switzerland is?" asks David.
Little Girl: "No, what's that?"
David: "Switzerland is a place where they don't like to fight, so they get people to do their fighting for them while they ski and eat chocolate."
