Last night I headed to Birmingham Repertory Theatre to see The Thing. The Thing is a performance looking at one mans journey through depression and anxiety, looking closely at the topic of suicide in men.
Performed by Les Enfants Terribles (Oliver Lansley, Miranda Mac Letten & Alexander Wolfe) and commissioned by BEDLAM Arts and Mental Health Festival 2019, using a variety of spoken word, modern dance and music to articulate the creator and performer Oliver Lansleys personal physical struggle with mental health.
Those who know me, will know that this performance is incredibly close to home, having lost my own brother to suicide, in March of this year.
I feel I spend a lot of my days, wondering what more I could have done to help him, to save him, to have him still here today. I wanted to come along to this performance, to help me understand a bit more what was happening to him.
Having seen my brother fight with his mental health since his teens – a mixture of my parents divorce and bullying at secondary school (both at exactly the same time, so he had no escape in either place), he spiralled into depression and as the years went by his mental health deteriorated further and further.
The Thing described perfectly some of the aspects I saw through my brother when he was alive. The song lyrics “Hold on – here it comes again, feels like an old friend…” the way it could almost, just almost, go away completely and I had my brother back, but then it would come back worse. The Thing, the Black Dog, always there, hidden, lingering, waiting to grab him again.
I enjoyed the physical representation using modern art of Oliver Lansleys personal physical struggle with mental health. You could almost feel the tugging. He could break free for a moment but then the tugging, the grip, the force, was back. The overuse of lights, sharp pitched noises, the darkness, the light, the tapping and everything in between portrayed brilliantly how a person going through depression and anxiety may be feeling.
Olivers description of all of the things he tried to help rid himself of depression, before heading to the doctors; meditation, yoga, nutrition, running, talking therapy , CBT, supplements, B6, Zinc, Primrose Oil, Omega Fish Oil, Rescue Remedy, no alcohol, smoothies etc. All tried but the depression wouldn’t go away. Eventually the show hears (some of the show is through recordings that Oliver made during the claws of Mental Health to see how it affected him) how Oliver went to the doctors to get some Citalopram 20mg and we hear how his body reacts to this over the next few days/weeks.
Most shocking for me, was the section of the show where we were given suicide and mental health statistics and audience members had to stand up. To see (percentage wise) how many people can be affected by mental health and suicide can be quite an eye opener (if this is performed again, I recommend your video camera is used to show the audience an image of the audience on your big screen, to get the full impact of these figures).
6507 people in the UK committed suicide in 2018.
1 in 4 people in the UK have mental health issues in their lifetime.
75% of the above, receive no treatment at all.
As the show started with the song ‘The Thing’ , I end my review with some of the lyrics…
“We need to talk about The Thing…”
If you are feeling anxious, depressed, like the world is on your shoulders, please talk to a friend, a family member, your GP or contact The Samaritans:
Freephone 116 123
Email (24 hour response) : jo@samaritans.org
Well done to Les Enfants Terrible for producing a hard hitting, honest production on this rising epidemic.