We welcome to the stage of the lecture theatre Ouida Burt PhD, UKCP, a psychotherapist and renowned sceptic from podcasts and tv shows on ghosts and things that go bump in the night.
She launches immediately into an eerie bedtime or campfire story, her face uplit by a torch. Case study #259 “The Devil in the Devil’s Backyard” where two men named John (not their real names she emphasises) are hiking over a moor, the night drawing in and their flashlights fading. These men are lost. When they find a bothy, they are convinced that there is something out there and when asked these rational men report “We saw the Devil”.
Now, did they see the Devil? Well, no one has collected the prize for proof of the supernatural, but did they believe it?
“I believe in you” is the framework of childhood games. Her father believed in her, telling her to keep her chin up. He was a botanist, familiar with the hawthorns of Dartmoor where the piskies (pixies) live, famous for leading people astray. He was also a sleepwalker; parasomnia being associated with fantastical thinking. On the day that he walked away and didn’t come back Bert the piskie came into her life.
As a therapist Ouida walks people back from drifting into fantasy but it’s something that happens in small steps. As she details her case files, she explains pareidolia, the human ability to make pictures out of randomness and apophenia, the tendency to connect the dots.
When the lights flicker spookily things start to unravel and we piece together the effects of the disruption in Ouida’s childhood attachments, her charged relationships with her grief-stricken mother and head of department and the truth of the possibly hopeless case “#380 Jane”.
This is a delicate, tender and layered look at believing, being brave and the struggle between fantasy, reality and cynicism. Lucy Roslyn is captivating as she moves from bookish academic with her halting delivery and awkward humour to lost girl.
A magical and uplifting tale of missing hope and the dreams which carry us on.
Show times: 1 – 26 (not 12, 19) August 2024 at 12 noon. (6, 22 captioned).
Tickets: £17 (£14.50).
Suitability: 12+ (Contains distressing or potentially triggering themes).