“What if I walked on stage and took over the show?” says Beth as she does just that, interrupting the opening of Dog Hamlet.
She hopes that she hasn’t fallen victim to the battleground of “itchy thoughts”, like saying the B word on a plane. It wouldn’t be the worst thing that has come to mind though as she takes us to The Prologue – The End, where she is standing on a bridge over the 405 Freeway thinking of jumping into traffic and wondering how she lost the will to die.
That story will be told in episodes, the jumping off point being another bridge when she is 19 years old and feeling depressed. This will see the start of a game of medication roulette, a spin through drugs and treatments landing first on Zoloft. This makes her smart, funny, electric, so she is shocked when her health care professional determines that this is actually the manic swing of full-blown bipolar disorder and not right for her.
Seroquel is less “fun”, leaving her to mostly asleep, a prisoner of leisure as it feels pointless to be awake. Seeking an alternative she mutters the fateful words “I have been thinking of killing myself” and finds no way back. In group therapy she makes another poor choice of words when naming things that are beautiful – her letter is D and while the itchy thoughts suggest “dicks”, she doesn’t go there.
There is a blur of medication with various side effects, and electroconvulsive therapy, which burns holes in her memory, some shared history shocked away. The epilogue sees her standing on the bridge and the stage, wondering about the need to stay and the risk that telling the story may push her over the edge.
This is a piece of unfiltered autobiographical storytelling of her struggles, almost stand-up in its comedy but also moving in its description of despair, delusion, family, love, and hope. Minimally set with the episodes marked with projections and snappy titles the focus isn’t on theatrical inventiveness but on the narration.
Witty, honest, uplifting – and unflinchingly human – it proves that sometimes the bravest punchline is surviving to tell it.
Show Times: 30 July – 24 (not 6,13, 20) August 2025 at 1.45 pm. (Captioned 14).
Tickets: £9, £13 (£12) to £15 (£14)
Suitability: 14+ (Note - Show contains strong language, limited audience participation and themes and discussions of mental illness and suicidal ideation).