MADE IN BRITAIN // Tez Ilyas

'Remember how no one got blown up at London 2012? I did that!' Comedian Tez Ilyas is referring to his Civil Service role on the Olympic security team. But he likes to leave no unmentionable unmentioned during his show Made in Britain.

Today Ilyas has left office life to pursue a career in comedy. His set explores what it means to be a British Muslim - in a post-Brexit period when anyone considered an outsider finds themselves living under an unprecedentedly critical spotlight.

Such hostility leads to long-term impacts on health and welfare. UK figures show that people of Pakistani and Bangladeshi descent experience much higher levels of some diseases, with scientists identifying experiences of racism and discrimination as crucial issues.

Nonetheless, recent opinion has shifted blame for community woes to minorities themselves. Ilyas gives short shrift to the former head of the Racial Equality Commission, Trevor Phillips, whose warning that Muslims were 'failing to integrate' played easily into the hands of a scaremongering press.

Ironically, it was the tragic Paris attacks that provided Ilyas with his first media break, a spot on BBC Radio 4's The Now Show that propelled him towards his current recognition. Now, he seems determined to use the limelight to highlight big issues that resonate individually with those who share a similar upbringing - but make everyone laugh.

Large families, parental pressures and arranged marriages are all personal experiences he chooses to talk about in this show – but llyas does not assume he is a spokesperson for the Asian community - indeed, he says there isn’t just one British Asian community. But his voice is significant in a country where research shows that direct and indirect racism damage children’s development, in ways that shape their entire lives. (RM)

Made In Britain ran at Pleasance Courtyard until August 28th - https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/tez-ilyas-made-in-britain 

Hate crime following the referendum: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/brexit-eu-referendum-racial-racism-abuse-hate-crime-reported-latest-leave-immigration-a7104191.html

Research by Yvonne Kelly, Professor of Lifecourse Epidemiology at UCL, into the impact of racial discrimination on child health: http://childofourtimeblog.org.uk/tag/racism/

PDF on UCL research into ethnicity and health: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/icls/publications/bn/ethnicity

Coverage of Trevor Phillips’ remarks about the Muslim community failing to integrate: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/10/uk-muslim-ghettoes-warning/

Has multiculturalism failed in the UK? Not really: article by Professor Anthony Heath: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/aug/10/multiculturalism-uk-research

DREAMCATCHER // Dreamcatcher

From Shakespeare to Emily Bronte and beyond, many authors have given dreams the power to direct, challenge and reveal. In Dreamcatcher, young Indian playwright Kashyap Raja explores whether dreams may hold the key to unlocking your subconscious mind and your destiny.

The significance of sleep is a hot topic in modern science. Researchers have recently uncovered evidence that our brain has a plumbing network called the glymphatic system, which they believe may be responsible for clearing out dementia-causing toxins while we doze.

But dream analysis is still on the borderline with pseudoscience. Sigmund Freud’s idea that we act out our desires in dreams is undermined by a study showing that paralysed people dreamt about walking less than average, even though they all expressed a desire to regain that ability.

Carl Jung also taught that dreams are highly significant, containing truths and visions that emerge from different levels of our unconscious mind. This is the scenario that Dreamcatcher explores, with a machine that can look inside living people’s dreams, where, it’s revealed, you can always find your heart’s desire.

So does science support the notion that dreams can reveal the workings of the subconscious mind? Unfortunately neurobiological theory suggests that dreams emerge as we try to make sense of sporadic firings of nerves in our brain stem, which randomly activate memories. 

But scientists continue to explore what’s going on in the brain’s unconscious. The latest experiments show we can do complicated maths, as well as making rapid-fire judgements that guide our behaviour, without even knowing we are doing it. Is this how our destiny asserts itself?

The more that experts probe how our brains work, the more we realise how much processing is going on in our unconscious without our awareness. Currently, though, the suggestion that dreams carry great significance seems like wishful thinking. (RM)

Dreamcatcher ran at theSpace @ Surgeon’s Hall until August 27th - https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/dreamcatcher 

The discovery of the brain’s glymphatic system: https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/news/story/3584/scientists-discover-previously-unknown-cleansing-system-in-brain.aspx

Significance of sleep to brain cleansing: https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/brain-may-flush-out-toxins-during-sleep

Neurobiological reasons for dreams: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/neuroskeptic/2010/04/07/why-do-we-dream/#.V9m5A_krKUk

The power of our unconscious mind: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20160315-the-enormous-power-of-the-unconscious-brain

WHITEOUT // Barrowland Ballet

Like so many stories of black-British experience, Whiteout begins with the six dancers shivering against an electronic pulse that seems to scream the word “blizzard”, showering them in icicles. As the soundtrack shifts, so do they, into unison movements that suggest assimilation, before individuals pull away. Once they do, Barrowland Ballet move into more personal territory, a contemplation of bi-racial relationships in which the dancers pair off and seek accommodation within their new couplings, ways to share their cultural backgrounds while maintaining distinct identities.

Choreographer/director Natasha Gilmore began this work thinking about her own experience, particularly as a mother of bi-racial children, and the tone of the resulting work is primarily optimistic. Her children appear in playful films of leapfrogging and rabbit hopping, the adults following their lead; interspersed within Luke Sutherland's restless and inventive soundtrack are folk songs chanted by Jade Adamson and Nandi Bhebhe, weaving African and British roots into a single responsive conversation.

But the group never shy away from portraying the effects on human relations of racist context, as pairs briefly fracture and individual dancers become lost in their own jagged movement. Of these, the most fraught is a scene in which one of the black males thuds and crashes about the stage, holding his head in his hands, while his partner and friends watch, confused and unable to help. It's a reminder of how depression among black men lurks unspoken and often goes untreated.

Whiteout is built as much from a symbiotic relationship between dancers and composer, movement and sound, as it is from thematic idea; yet almost every moment opens up a question. What does it mean when the black female dancer lifts the white male; when the white female dancer stands apart from the group, when the black male dancers square off against each other? It would be easy not to notice the movements that suggest these questions, or to think they had no import, and that in itself delivers a subtle comment on the ways in which racism is dismissed as a matter of perception, rather than a fact that people of colour have to live with. Underlying everything is a sense of longing: that its most positive pictures of racial harmony might be only a few steps away. (MC)

Whiteout is on at 17.00 at ZOO Southside until August 27th. Wheelchair Access, Level Access, Wheelchair Accessible Toilets - https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/whiteout

On the stigma of depression within the black community: https://www.artefactmagazine.com/2016/03/19/why-is-depression-stigmatised-within-the-black-community/

And the taboo specifically among African-American men: https://www.lucidatreatment.com/blog/mental-health/african-american-men-depression/

On systemic racism in Britain, how it affects black communities and how to challenge it: http://leejasper.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/racism-is-dividing-britain-and-denial.html

Poet Claudia Rankine on racism and perception: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/dec/27/claudia-rankine-poetry-racism-america-perception

Academic Sara Ahmed on racism and perception: https://feministkilljoys.com/2014/02/17/the-problem-of-perception/

PULSE // Mairi Campbell

Full disclosure: when I hear Mairi Campbell’s voice, I feel at home. Campbell’s version of Auld Lang Syne is my regular YouTube go-to cry-song (it featured in Sex & the City The Movie) and when I hear her voice I feel safe, and warm, able to cry… I feel home. Watching Campbell’s journey to find her home and her authentic voice, therefore, felt like a journey I already associated with her.

Much has been written on the science of the voice and of music (Wellcome Collection’s This is a Voice exhibition being a recent major example), from the study of how the voice and ear physically understand and receive sound, to the chemicals released in our brain upon hearing music, to the physical benefits derived from dance. In Mairi Campbell’s Pulse, however, it is the quest to find the music which suited her body, to find the music which fit with her bones, which is the central journey. The history of music (and folk music in particular) is inherently bound to questions of nationality, or migration, of colonialism, and of intercultural exchange – and this is an area around which Pulse treads lightly – but in Campbell’s journey, an idea of ‘home’ feels less psychological or political and more physical, even genetic.

Recent scientific studies have attempted to locate either a music gene, or a scientific correlation between distinct populations and the music they make. For Campbell, her experience with both classical music (at Guildhall and in Mexico), and folk music (both with and without footwork in Canada and Scotland), seems to entail a complex interplay between genetics, nationality, gender norms, environmentalism and spirituality. For us as audience members, however, we experience her music in the bones, the ear, the heart. Part of me wishes I understood, scientifically and intellectually, how music and this voice makes me feel home… or maybe not… I wouldn’t want my brain to get in the way. (BL)

Pulse is at Summerhall Old Lab until August 28th. Venue is wheelchair accessible and BSL shows are available - https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/mairi-campbell-pulse

On Mairi Campbell: https://mairicampbell.scot/

This is a Voice Exhibition: https://wellcomecollection.org/thisisavoice

Nature vs. Nurture in Music Taste: http://phys.org/news/2009-11-nature-nurture-reveals-musical-genes.html

TORCH // Flipping the Bird

The setting for Torch is a narrow one: its narrator has locked herself in a toilet cubicle at a nightclub, unable to summon the confidence to storm the dancefloor despite plenty of shots and a snort of coke. Within its confines, she journeys across her past, reflecting on the relationships and sexual experiences that shaped and eroded her sense of self. It's a history of disappointment, mostly: whatever she wanted of the men who paraded through her life, she never got it. All that remains of them is a set of lifeless mementoes, a jumper maybe, recording their interaction.

But the disappointment is also in herself: reaching back to her teenage years, she wonders at her youthful exuberance, revels in the memory of her ease in her own body. Having sex for the first time, she says, “I finally understood my own power.” That teenager didn't hide her body behind baggy t-shirts, and didn't need a man's permission to do anything. More than once the woman cries out that she wants that teenage self back.

The experiences described in Phoebe Eclair-Powell's text are common enough to feel like archetypes; performed by Jess Mabel Jones, iridescent with gold glitter strewn across her eyes and lips, they gain a potent charge. Interspersed between each anecdote is the song this woman might have belted out in her kitchen, or listened to on an iPod while crying on the nightbus: some morose, some cheeky, none of them specifically relevant to the story but useful all the same. There's some fascinating neuroscience describing the ways in which music – especially the music heard as a teenager – impacts on the human brain: the nostalgia connectors that develop as a result are the same ones triggered by this show.

The text doesn't do much sexual-politics work: the affairs described are all heteronormative; and although the woman remembers with regret not kissing a woman she found attractive, her desire for lesbian experience is vague. And although the work is feminist on the surface, it's noticeable that the woman seeks self-definition in sexual relationships rather than intellect, work or non-physical engagement with the world. In essence, Torch is itself a torch song: a shot of emotion directed straight at the heart. (MC)

Torch is on at 20.50 at Underbelly Cowgate until August 28th. Hearing Loop - https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/torch

On the lack of scientific research into female sexuality: http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2015/08/03/sexual_orientation_in_women_why_so_little_scientific_research.html

On lesbianism and sexual fluidity: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/nov/26/lesbianism-women-sexual-fluidity-same-sex-experiences

Questions raised by women equating sex with power: http://everydayfeminism.com/2015/12/power-in-sexuality-problem/

The neuroscience of musical nostalgia: http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2014/08/musical_nostalgia_the_psychology_and_neuroscience_for_song_preference_and.html

On the benefits of nostalgia: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/09/science/what-is-nostalgia-good-for-quite-a-bit-research-shows.html?ref=science&_r=1

SPIDERS BY NIGHT // Coffee House/Stepping Out

Spiders by Night is a double bill of short monologues developed, produced and presented by two Bristol-based theatre companies which describe their work as a collaboration between community members with mental health difficulties or addiction issues and professional artists.

Both monologues are minimally staged and invite audiences to focus their attention on the writing and delivery of both pieces. 'Waiting for ISON', the first monologue begins with Simon looking into space through a telescope in his attic and frantically checking his phone. Simon is an astronomy enthusiast following the comet’s journey across space.

For a while, the monologue merely hints at Simon’s obsessive relationship to his passion, and the isolation that it led to. During that time, we could easily be led to believe that we are about to be told a science fiction story, or one of adventure - and in any case, not an exploration of the character’s mental health. While we understand that Simon may not spend much time outside of his attic or interacting with others, one (human) friend regularly visits him.

When Simon begins to develop a friendship with a family of spiders living in his attic, visits from his (human) friend become less and less frequent, until they stop entirely after Simon calls the police to report the alleged murder of one of his spider friends. This poetic monologue subtly highlights that perhaps to care best for those with mental illnesses, approaches which include supporting people in their immediate environment might be more effective. The Open Dialogue Approach for example is a system of care developed in Western Lapland which works with people traditionally thought of as ‘the patient’ as well as their families or other networks.

The second part of the double bill, 'Insider', is told by a patient-cum-spider herself as she moves around and explores a secure psychiatric ward. With two crutches as additional spider legs, the performer’s physicality compliments the text’s description of the effects of psychiatric care on the patient’s body. Both the patient herself, and an outsider observer, the spider wants to escape and is not able to. While the reason for the character’s placement in a psychiatric ward isn’t made clear, the piece could be read as an exploration of dissociative disorder, or as a comment on the lack of agency the character has over her own care. (LB)

The run of Spiders By Night: A Double Bill of Exciting New Monologues at theSpace @ Surgeon's Hall has now finished. WA, LA, WC - https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/spiders-by-night-a-double-bill-of-exciting-new-monologues

Coffee House community theatre company website: http://www.coffeehousetheatrecompany.com/#!about/cfp1

Stepping Out Theatre website: http://www.steppingouttheatre.co.uk/

Further information on the Open Dialogue approach system of care developed in Western Lapland: http://opendialogueapproach.co.uk/

Information about dissociative disorders from the NHS: http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/dissociative-disorders/Pages/Introduction.aspx

COSMIC FEAR or THE DAY BRAD PITT GOT PARANOIA // Empty Deck

From their living room, two men and a woman become increasingly overwhelmed by news of natural catastrophes and the increased evidence of climate change as one of the biggest contemporary challenges for society to face up to.

Christian Lollike’s characters carve themselves a route out of their anxiety and helplessness in the face of global disasters by taking turns to stand in for Brad Pitt, and occasionally Angelina Jolie, as they seek to come up with a blockbuster that might just change the world.

The play rapidly unravels around the characters’ attempts at filming their own DIY Hollywood “eco-calypse” with a smartphone streaming to a screen at the back of the stage.

Lollike’s script is constructed over multiple layers, in a distinctly postmodern voice blurring our ability (at times) to identify who is speaking - might it be the characters in the play? the characters played by the characters in the play? or the actors as themselves?

The paranoia referred to in the title - more accurately paranoid schizophrenia - is present throughout the piece and explored in various guises. From the formal exploration of the illness in the writing itself, to the direct references to its symptoms and possible manifestations in the text and well-worn stage representations of madness (loud voices speaking at once, repeated laughter etc.).

Cosmic Fear’s artistic exploration of paranoid schizophrenia provides a lens through which to highlight the links between capitalism, climate change and mental (ill) health.

In art and poetry the weather has often provided rich images to express complex thoughts, feelings and emotions - it wouldn’t be difficult, for example to read Paul Verlaine’s Autumn Song as a poem about depression developing in old age.

With Cosmic Fear… however, the weather (cast as the Villain) is no longer a way to simply illustrate our relationship to our mental health, but a timely warning that the consequences of climate change to our environments are now directly impacting our sense of being. (LB)

Cosmic Fear or The Day Brad Pitt Got Paranoia is on at 15.00 at Bedlam Theatre until August 28th. Wheelchair Access, Level Access - https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/cosmic-fear-or-the-day-brad-pitt-got-paranoia

Symptoms of schizophrenia: http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Schizophrenia/Pages/Symptoms.aspx

On Paul Verlaine: http://www.rosings.com/paul_verlaine.html

On impact of climate change on mental health: http://grist.org/climate-energy/what-is-climate-change-doing-to-our-mental-health/

DOUBTING THOMAS // Grassmarket Projects

Doubting Thomas is ostensibly about Glasgow's criminal underworld, but it's also about the consequences of childhood trauma and neglect, and it's about rehabilitation. Written and performed by Thomas McCrudden with support from the cast, it is the true story of his violent past, detailing his time both in and out of prison.

As well as reenacting scenes from his life, McCrudden explores the roots of his offending, investigating how and why someone might become criminally dispossessed. He says: 'When I was growing up I wasn’t shown love, and that created not just a man without a conscience or empathy. It created a monster.' He also talks about how he was always wearing a mask, and it was only when he found the courage to remove it that he was able to change.

McCrudden's stories of life in prison include descriptions of desperate young men unable to read or write, and several bloody suicide attempts. In Doubting Thomas, prison is not a place where people are empowered to turn their lives around; it is a place of violence and fear, full of young men let down by mainstream education who have found the only way they can prove themselves is through crime.

Research by the University of Strathclyde's Interventions for Vulnerable Youth service has explored the links between childhood trauma and offending. Consultant Clinical and Forensic Psychologist Dr Lorraine Johnston says: 'We see some children dismissed as attention seeking or manipulative. But 75-85 per cent of them have significant histories of trauma. Understanding their behaviour as a response to that can be the key.'

The Grassmarket Project was founded in 1990 by Artistic Director Jeremy Weller, who focuses on putting real life stories on stage. There is often only one professional actor in the cast, with the rest of the parts played by the people who actually experienced them. The act of creating and performing the play is a kind of catharsis, a way to confront one's demons and potentially move on. Doubting Thomas is performance as rehab. (HB)

Doubting Thomas is on at Summerhall (venue 26) at 19:20 until 28 August: https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/doubting-thomas

'Mental Health and Prisons': http://www.who.int/mental_health/policy/mh_in_prison.pdf

'Prison is not working – it’s time for a rehabilitation revolution': http://www.halsburyslawexchange.co.uk/prison-is-not-working-its-time-for-a-rehabilitation-revolution/

'Domestic violence a trigger for three quarters of violent young offenders': http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/homenews/14329830.Domestic_violence_a_trigger_for_three_quarters_of_violent_young_offenders/

'Understanding the Cycle, Childhood Maltreatment and Future Crime': https://www.princeton.edu/~jcurrie/publications/Understanding%20the%20CycleChildhood.pdf

Positive Prison, Positive Futures: http://www.positiveprison.org

Prison Reform Trust: http://www.prisonreformtrust.org.uk

The Howard League for Penal Reform: http://howardleague.org

I'VE SNAPPED MY BANJO STRING, LET'S JUST TALK // Scott Agnew

Before he gets going, Scott Agnew checks that everyone in the room knows what he really means when he talks about snapping a banjo string. Because anyone who thinks they're in for an hour of innocuous anecdotes from a homespun folk player might be in for a shock. The incident during which – to use the medical term – the frenulum beneath the foreskin of his penis tore and “showered the walls with blood” is one of the more viscous but by no means most explicit of stories in this brief survey of the activities that might have led to him contracting HIV. Cantering from sauna to nightclub to drug-fuelled house parties, he admits that sometimes he wasn't in total control of his actions.

Long before his HIV diagnosis, Agnew needed another for his mental health, but the GP he saw wrote him off successively as an alcoholic, a food addict, a gambler, a sex addict and more, without recognising the symptoms of bipolar disorder. Agnew now manages both conditions, but there's an equivocal tone in his text that suggests he's still overwhelmed by this. For instance, he makes a specific point of saying that not understanding his mental health doesn't absolve his responsibility for his virus, as though HIV is a shameful thing. The words that repeat as a refrain in his show are: “It's not ideal – a downbeat phrase in search of a bright side.

Yet he does recognise positive aspects to his HIV diagnosis: for instance, he jokes, his medication has raised his life expectancy above the average for Glasgow, his home. And with the virus now undetectable in his blood count, he's a safer date than most – although, he points out lugubriously, “that's a hard sell on the dancefloor”. His politicking is bolder when directed outside himself: why is it, he asks, that gays on the telly have to be sexually neutered to be acceptable for a mainstream audience? Camp is fine, he argues, but there needs to be a wider spectrum of queer personality in public life. Elsewhere he gets exercised by the widespread use of date-rape drugs among gay men, who have been “hiding for so long” that they have no way of expressing their emotions. Undoubtedly the two are connected.

For all the comedic banter, it's a poignant show, one that raises a number of questions about Agnew's relationship with his diagnoses and with his Catholic family. Within those questions is a sharp impression of of how far the LGBT+ community still needs to travel towards visibility and feeling accepted within society at large. (MC)

Scott Agnew: I've Snapped My Banjo String, Let's Just Talk is at 22.00 at Gilded Balloon at the Counting House until 29 August. See venue for accessibility information - https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/scott-agnew-i-ve-snapped-my-banjo-string-let-s-just-talk

On living with frenulum breve: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2002/feb/28/healthandwellbeing.health2

On HIV stigma and homophobia: http://www.thebody.com/content/art54913.html

A look at the language of HIV stigma: http://www.thebody.com/content/75496/when-words-work-against-us-the-language-of-hiv-sti.html

Information on bipolar disorder: http://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/types-of-mental-health-problems/bipolar-disorder/

HELP // Bae

Some 25 years ago, at the peak of his band's chart fame with Sit Down, Tim Booth of the band James did an interview with one of the weekly music papers in which he mentioned having reached “the enlightened state of fuck it”. It's a glorious – and evidently memorable – phrase, whose echo resounds through Help: a set of sketches by new comedy duo Bae that promise the audience an aura shakedown and a double serving of kale-flavoured happiness.

There's much to satirise in the lifestyle and self-help industry, whether it's the advice to steam your vagina given on Gwyneth Paltrow's blog Goop or the Hemsley sisters' preoccupation with the consistency of stools. In creating their parade of seminar leaders, chat-show hosts and Ted-style talkers, however, Bae are as concerned to unmask these women's micro-aggressions, insecurities and failures as they are to expose their teachings as quasi-mystic mumbo-jumbo. From the Californian guru who consistently speaks over others to the vaguely Teutonic woman who recommends groping as a method of winning people's attention and admiration, not a single one among them is beguiling as a personality.

The problem with this approach is that it risks creating the impression of heteronormative white privilege laughing at anything other than itself, by presenting Buddhism as intrinsically funny and lesbianism a lifestyle choice, and equating being “a bit of a mess” with being a loser. It also avoids the question of why people, particularly women, might find or even seek a salve in alternative therapies, “clean” eating, yoga or mindfulness. The politics underlying the self-help industry are fraught, with capitalism and neoliberalism creating the conditions in which mental health problems flourish, before selling the “cure” to considerable financial gain. Is mindfulness a way of numbing the brain to acceptance of rather than anger against social problems, or a step aside from conventional western ideas about how to live? Complicated questions underlie this material: by inviting us to join with them in declaring “fuck it”, Bae avoid the more difficult discussions that might point the way to actual enlightenment. (MC)

Help is on at 11.45 at Just the Tonic @ The Mash House until August 27th (not 20th). See venue for accessibility information - https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/help

Debunking vagina steaming: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/jan/30/sorry-gwyneth-paltrow-but-steaming-your-vagina-is-a-bad-idea

Debunking “clean eating”: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/bake-offs-ruby-vs-the-hemsleys-the-bad-science-behind-clean-eati/

Debunking monetised happiness: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/apr/12/happiness-capitalism

The pros and cons of mindfulness: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/feb/23/should-we-be-mindful-of-mindfulness-nhs-depression

Mindfulness put to the test: http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/my_trouble_with_mindfulness

Stella Duffy on the benefits of mindfulness and yoga: https://stelladuffy.wordpress.com/2016/07/29/the-quiet-after-the-raging/

DON'T PANIC! IT'S CHALLENGE ANNEKA // on the button

A solo comedy show in which writer and performer Sophie Winter plays all the parts, including her boss, her mum, her best friend and 90s TV star Anneka Rice, Don't Panic! It's Challenge Anneka is all about anxiety. It uses humour and silliness to demystify and start conversations about a serious subject.

Sophie worries to a debilitating extent, making daily life incredibly difficult. The people around her don't understand the panic she regularly feels, advising that what she really needs to do is pull herself together and get on with it. Sophie even berates herself – she's a privileged young woman from Hampshire who has suffered no traumas of note. She has a job, a decent income and a roof over her head, what has she got to be so anxious about? Her guilt only makes her feel worse.

Anxiety disorders, which often manifest as excessive worry, fear and a tendency to avoid potentially stressful situations, are some of the most common mental health problems we experience. Modern life is anxiety inducing, but the fight or flight response is ancient. When a human believes they are in danger, their breath shortens, their heart beats faster, they sweat – all symptoms of a panic attack.

After Edinburgh, Don't Panic! It's Challenge Anneka will tour secondary schools, running workshops exploring mental health for students in Year 9 and above. This makes sense, as young people are most likely to experience anxiety. A global review of existing scientific literature by the University of Cambridge published in June this year found that four in every 100 people experience anxiety disorders, with women and people under 35 affected the most.

The literature review highlighted the need for more research, especially into how anxiety affects marginalised groups. Dr Louise Lafortune, Senior Research Associate at the Cambridge Institute of Public Health, says: 'Anxiety disorders affect a lot of people and can lead to impairment, disability, and risk of suicide. Although many groups have examined this important topic, significant gaps in research remain.' (HB)

Don't Panic! It's Challenge Anneka is on at Summerhall (venue 26) until 28 August (not 22nd). See venue for accessibility information - https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/don-t-panic-it-s-challenge-anneka

Anxiety UK: https://www.anxietyuk.org.uk

'Women and people under the age of 35 at greatest risk of anxiety': http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/women-and-people-under-the-age-of-35-at-greatest-risk-of-anxiety

'Living with anxiety: Britain's silent epidemic': https://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/sep/15/anxiety-epidemic-gripping-britain

'Anxiety: the epidemic sweeping through Generation Y': http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/health/anxiety-the-epidemic-sweeping-through-generation-y/

'How It Actually Feels to Live with Severe Anxiety': http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/anxiety-and-me-189

It Affects Me: http://www.itaffectsme.co.uk

THE TALK // Mish Grigor

It's a basic fact of parenting that children grow up to do things you might personally find regrettable: contract sexual diseases, for instance, or make theatre, or worse, make theatre about contracting sexual diseases. Mish Grigor's parents have approved a version of her text for The Talk but not, she twinkles, this one. And whether or not that or anything else she says in the show is true is irrelevant; she transcends old-fashioned morals and conventional proprieties the moment she describes the size of her father's cock in a reported conversation with her mother, and just keeps travelling from there.

At the heart of The Talk is a frustration: that every one of us is alive because two people had sex, and yet culturally we're terrible at talking about it. Grigor plunges her family into discomfort when she starts interrogating them about how they fuck: no one can understand why she's doing it, but that incomprehension is part of the point. The prim silence we observe around sex allows all manner of inequalities to persist: not least, the one demonstrated within Grigor's own family, whereby her father is cheerfully being sucked off by a third wife, while her mother is single, wary of online dating, and contemplating a future in which perhaps she never has sex again.

Lack of communication also breeds misinformation and fear: the fear that Grigor confesses feeling not only for but of her brother, now living with HIV. It's left to him to explain, patiently, that modern medication makes the virus undetectable in his blood stream. No one knows what effect it will have on the body long-term, he adds, but even if it kills me, at least it will stop me killing anyone else.

In this, and throughout the show, the words of Grigor's family are spoken by members of the audience: she takes our presence in the room as consent, and in doing so glances at another critical problem caused by lack of decent conversation about sex. The show relies on general embarrassment for its humour: if everyone in the room were comfortable rather than coy in talking about their bodies and its pleasures, The Talk would lose much of its piquancy. But society as a whole might gain, Grigor argues: especially the people within it who aren't heterosexual cis-men. (MC)

The Talk is on at 16.00 at Forest Fringe (Out of the Blue Drill Hall) unitl August 20th. See venue for accessibility information - http://forestfringe.co.uk/edinburgh2016/artist/mish-grigor/

Another argument for more and better talking about sex, in the Wardrobe Ensemble show 1972: The Future of Sex: http://www.thewardrobeensemble.com/#!1972-the-future-of-sex/c13ut

On Paul Goodman, whose 1960 book Growing Up Absurd argued that the fettering of adolescent sexuality was crucial to subduing the human spirit within a capitalist system: http://www.paulgoodmanfilm.com/old/the_relevance.html

Writing on consent from the Edinburgh fringe: https://katewyver.wordpress.com/2016/08/08/zero-something-important/

On the 3D model of a clitoris, to be used in French sex education: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/aug/15/french-schools-3d-model-clitoris-sex-education

On HIV treatment: http://www.tht.org.uk/myhiv/HIV-and-you/Your-treatment/HIV-treatment

ONLY BONES // Kallo Collective & Aurora Nova

In Only Bones, we watch a solo physical performer (Thomas Monckton) manipulate his own body parts to create the illusion of characters, relationships, and scenes that, when taken all together, conjure a surreal story of evolution, arriving at the presentation of himself as a whole human being.

The setting is in the Dissecting Room at the Summerhall, once used as a veterinary lecture demonstration theatre. This enhances the anatomical focus on the human body and its movement capabilities. The most important set element, though, is the hanging shaded lamp that masks Monckton’s face until it’s revealed as part of the exploratory journey through the body that begins at his toes and ends with the voice.

The lamp casts light and shadow that make the body parts appear as spotlit objects in space - how do they move? What can they do? This, in turn, triggers the imagination, harnessing the human capacity to anthropomorphise and project story onto inert, non-literal stimuli.

Monckton trained in circus technique in his native New Zealand, before studying physical theatre-clown at the renowned École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq in France. The intense study of physical control and analysis of bodily expression these institutes provides allows Monckton to explore the communicative capacities of minimal human movement. Our imagination conjures prehistoric sea creatures from the independently undulating digits of a weaving hand; a couple setting out to consumate a date appear in the movement of wrists and fingers; genetic experiments resulting in hybrid life-forms emerge from a pair of fists and associated vocalisations.

As his body discovers itself, creating a head, using the plasticity of his facial skin to mold identities, and at last using verbal language, we are shown an abstract origin story that spans all of life and arrives in humanity.

- KK

Only Bones is on at 20:30 at Summerhall until August 28th. Wheelchair Access - https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/only-bones

On the pedagogy of Jacques Lecoq: http://dlibrary.acu.edu.au/staffhome/siryan/academy/theatres/lecoq,%20jacques.htm

Only Bones OU - a parallel video work stemming from the Only Bones project: https://vimeo.com/143630618

Dr Vincent Bellonzi on plasticity of the human body: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0XZfDZxR9g

Types of body movements: http://philschatz.com/anatomy-book/contents/m46398.html

‘Imagining Other Minds: Anthropomorphism Is Hair-Triggered but Not Hare- Brained’: https://static.squarespace.com/static/51e3f4ede4b053e5f0062efd/t/5474a9b4e4b09a953cc54329/1416931764853/anthropomorphism-is-hair-triggered.pdf

‘Evolution of Life’ timeline: https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17453-timeline-the-evolution-of-life/

BEND IN THE RIVER // Deep Water Theatre Collective

Have you ever heard of Hansen’s disease? What about its more common name, leprosy? A disease that feels like it should belong in the history books, more than 200,000 people are still diagnosed with Hansen’s disease every year around the world, mainly in South America, Africa, India and south-east Asia. Given this distribution in the developing world, it’s easy to forget that it was a problem in the US until well into the 20th century.
 
US company Deep Water Theatre Collective set their play, Bend in the River, in the Carville National Leprosarium in the early 1940s. Shut away from the world, the residents are stigmatised and shunned, rejected by their families and communities. They’re forced to change their names, and are tended for by Dr Guy Henry Faget and his team of dedicated nuns who act as nurses and spiritual counsellors. The exact cause of the disease is unclear – although it’s known that certain bacteria are involved – and there are no good treatments, only isolation from the world and the hope of a clean run of twelve monthly skin scrapings.
 
As Faget’s research starts to lead to new hope for a cure, resident Stanley Stein resurrects “The Star”, a newsletter describing life at Carville and raising awareness of the disease. Other residents carry on with life in the confines of their quarantine, falling in love, falling pregnant and volunteering for endless clinical trials of the latest therapy. Finally, something works. It’s a new drug called Promin, and the effects are astounding. It makes Faget’s name as a researcher and changes the lives of many Carville residents.
 
Mandatory quarantine for people with leprosy was revoked in the US in the 1950s, once it became clear that the disease wasn’t nearly as contagious as had been feared. Today Carville is a museum dedicated to Hansen’s disease, brought back to life for just one week here in Edinburgh.

- KA

 
Bend in the River has finished its run at Greenside @ Nicholson Square - https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/bend-in-the-river
 
Promin – the first breakthrough drug for leprosy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Promin

The National Hansen’s Disease Museum: http://www.hrsa.gov/hansensdisease/museum/

The Carville Star: http://www.fortyandeight.org/the-star/

Previous issues held at the Louisiana Digital Library: http://www.louisianadigitallibrary.org/cdm/landingpage/collection/p15140coll52

Leprosy in Louisiana: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leprosy_in_Louisiana

Is Hansen’s disease contagious?: http://www.medicinenet.com/is_leprosy_hansens_disease_contagious/article.htm

Information about Hansen’s disease: https://www.cdc.gov/leprosy/

TEAM VIKING // James Rowland

James Rowland’s monologue, Team Viking, is a natural second act to Liz Rothschild’s Outside The Box, which I had just watched. Both shows highlight the importance and the challenges of giving a loved one the burial they want, but tackle this sensitive subject in completely different ways.
 
Drawing on a (mostly) true story, the tale starts with his father’s funeral. It’s a huge but slightly soulless affair at which Rowland has given a moving eulogy. We then flash back to the childhood origins of Team Viking – Rowland and his friends Tom and Sarah – who are bound together by their shared love of re-enacting scenes from Kirk Douglas’ 1958 film The Vikings, full of “fighting, quaffing and wenching”. They grow up and continue much along these lines, supporting each other through the ups and downs of life: Tom the fun-loving Lothario, Sarah the organised engineer and James, who plays all the other parts.
 
Suddenly everything changes when Tom is diagnosed with a rare, aggressive and totally incurable cancer. Primary cardiac angiosarcoma is cancer of the heart muscle – a condition affecting around 0.001 per cent of the population. He’s not quite one in a million, but it’s close. The disease is a death sentence, claiming Tom’s life in a matter of months, and Rowland takes us through the heart-breaking process of watching his best friend slowly fade away knowing there is nothing that can be done.
 
For his part, Tom is adamant that he wants the kind of funeral they’d play-acted as kids, cast adrift on a burning boat. He achieves it through some fairly spectacular emotional manipulation, leaving Rowland and Sarah to figure out how to actually make it happen. The technicalities of delivering Tom’s big finale are described in fraught, hilarious detail, far removed from Liz Rothschild’s calm explanations of organising a funeral of your choosing and the legal aspects of obtaining a dead body for burial. It’s not an orthodox ending, and some parts of it were technically illegal, but Team Viking is a moving story of friendship, loss, and the importance of giving someone you love the send-off they desire and deserve.

- KA

 
Team Viking is on at 14:55 at Just The Tonic at the Community Project until August 28th (not 15th). Wheelchair Access, Level Access, Relaxed Performance - https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/team-viking

Dead right – who does a body belong to?: http://www.goodfuneralguide.co.uk/2009/07/dead-right/

Cardiac sarcoma: http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/277297-overview

Macmillan cancer support - at the end of life: http://www.macmillan.org.uk/information-and-support/coping/at-the-end-of-life

Diagnosis of Liz Rothschild’s Fringe show Outside the Box: http://thesickofthefringe.com/week-two/outside-the-box

Death on the Fringe: https://deathonthefringe.wordpress.com/

TUMOUR HAS IT // Karen Hobbs

They say write what you know (except when they say not to), so if a performer is diagnosed with a serious illness, they will inevitably consider using it as the basis of a show. For Karen Hobbs, her experience of cervical cancer became her “usp” (unique selling point) and she has created Tumour Has It to tell the full story.

Cancer comes with a ready-made narrative structure. There's the back-story (life before cancer), an inciting incident (diagnosis), challenges and solutions (testing and treatment), a clear hero (the performer), an even clearer antagonist (the cancer, which Hobbs named Svetlana), an inner struggle - literally - where the stakes couldn't be higher, and some degree of resolution at the end. So the question is not what story to tell but how to tell it: which metaphors to invest in, and which to reject. At one point, Hobbs appears as a boxer, complete with audio of sports channel-style commentators - but the fight against cancer never starts because there is nothing there for her to punch.

Through the show, Hobbs regularly says “Thank you for coming” to the audience. It seems to reflect the changes she went through, as if each step generated a slightly different Karen Hobbs who must introduce herself anew. There are obvious physical changes by the end of the story, due to the surgery to remove the tumour, but her attitude and mindset have changed as well. Telling this story isn't just about raising awareness or encouraging people to go for a smear test when invited, although this is clearly an important part of her motivation for doing it; telling this story also helps Hobbs reassert control after both body and mind have been hijacked by cancer.

- MR

Tumour Has It is on at 14.50 at Underbelly Med Quad until August 29th (not 17th). Wheelchair Access, Wheelchair Accessible Toilets - https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/karen-hobbs-tumour-has-it

Karen Hobbs’s blog: https://quarterlifecancer.com/

A Cancer Research UK blogpost on how metaphors for cancer that involve fighting or war can be motivational but also harmful: http://scienceblog.cancerresearchuk.org/2015/09/28/may-i-take-your-metaphor-how-we-talk-about-cancer/

The Eve Appeal supports awareness of and research into gynaecological cancers: https://eveappeal.org.uk/

COME WITH ME // Helen Duff

In a world where magazine headlines scream about ever more exciting ways to achieve the heady heights of sexual pleasure, a comedy show based on the inability to hit the ‘big O’ is an oddity. The causes are many and varied, ranging from the physical impacts of health conditions, drugs or the menopause, to psychological issues such as fear or anxiety. In fact, depending on which set of figures you believe, somewhere between five and 12 per cent of women suffer from anorgasmia – the inability to experience an orgasm despite receiving sexual stimulation. Comedian Helen Duff is one of them, and turns what could be a frustrating situation into a frank and funny show climaxing with an anarchic group experience.  
 
Over the course of an hour, she morphs from the human embodiment of a sperm – clad in blue raincoat and leggings – through to a larger-than-life vulva complete with inexplicable Yorkshire accent, removable hair and prominent clitoris (a knitted pink bobble-hat). Together, we are aiming to recreate the mystery of the female orgasm. Our template for this exercise is a survey Duff has carried out, asking people to describe their experiences of pleasure. An all over sneeze combined with a really good itch. The feeling of having Belgian chocolate licked off your genitals. Like eating eight mangoes all at once. Almost dying. Like riding a unicorn through the sky. In the absence of unicorns, mangoes and chocolate, Duff hands out tools to the audience to help us come together: packets of ginger nuts, eight bananas, feather dusters and pots of bubble mixture.
 
By the end of the show, she’s riding across the cramped stage on the back of a burly man wearing a unicorn horn, beaten on the bottom by packets of biscuits and gagging on half-chewed bananas. The result is a breathless, sweaty mess, and judging by the look on Duff’s face, she seemed to enjoy it as much as we did.

- KA 

Come With Me is on at 17.45 at Pleasance That until August 19th (not 15th). Wheelchair Access, Level Access, Hearing Loop - https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/helen-duff-come-with-me

Information about anorgasmia: http://www.lanarkshiresexualhealth.org/unable-to-orgasm-anorgasmia/

In Psychology Today - 'Help! I can’t have an orgasm!': https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/save-your-sex-life/201111/help-i-cant-have-orgasm

EAT. SLEEP. BATHE. REPEAT. // Act One

The title of Eat. Sleep. Bathe. Repeat refers directly to the routines that are as vital to the residents in a home for men with “low-functioning” autism as they are to the staff. The drama begins when these routines are interrupted by the arrival of James, a young man who needs holiday work but has no experience of caring for people with disabilities.

The narrative follows James as he gets to know everyone (including himself), and as such it adopts his naive neurotypical perspective. This, coupled with the fact that much of the dialogue is comedic, makes for discomforting watching at times. While non-autistic characters - particularly James - develop during the show, autistic characters are much less dynamic in the narrative. Their actions and changes in mood are often presented as random, inexplicable and dangerous. The play is based on true events but while it may be drawing on real people and experiences (albeit seen through a neurotypical lens), it risks falling back to one-dimensional portrayals of autism.

However, by presenting five characters with a variety of traits and needs, Eat. Sleep. Bathe. Repeat shows some of the diversity of autism even within the low-functioning end of the spectrum. And while most of the residents seen on stage are non-verbal, the play does succeed in giving each of them a distinct character, perhaps again reflecting the people who inspired it.

- MR

Eat. Sleep. Bathe. Repeat. is on at 20.25 at theSpace on the Mile until August 13th. Wheelchair Access, Level Access - https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/eat-sleep-bathe-repeat

Cian Binchy, an autistic performer, brought The Misfit Analysis to the Fringe last year: http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/news/we-need-autistic-actors-playing-autistic-roles-on-stage-says-curious-incident-adviser-10454728.html

Sara Barrett calls for authentic autistic voices in popular culture: https://www.theguardian.com/childrens-books-site/2016/apr/03/autism-voices-books-awareness-week

An interview with Steve Silberman, author of Neurotribes, including his dislike of the term “low-functioning”: http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/09/02/436742377/neurotribes-examines-the-history-and-myths-of-the-autism-spectrum

Information about autism from the National Autistic Society: http://www.autism.org.uk/

THE INEVITABLE HEARTBREAK OF GAVIN PLIMSOLE // SharkLegs

Few body parts are more engaged with (both literally and metaphorically), in theatre and literature, as the heart, and The Inevitable Heartbreak of Gavin Plimsole joins a healthy tradition of artwork in which heartbreak informs a medical heart condition, and in which a medical heart condition informs the story of a heartbreak. In TIHOGP, the audience follows Plimsole’s diagnosis of a serious heart condition caused from malformation, and follows him through informing friends and family, confronting the big questions of ‘Why Me?’ and confronting the uncomfortable reality that no one (not even a young man) is invincible.

The innovation with SharkLegs’ production however, expands both the metaphoric and literal questions of fate and our beating hearts, done by asking audience members to don a heart monitor, the readings of which are projected in the performance space, and which affect – Choose Your Own Adventure-like – the choices of the central character. While Plimsole’s central purpose is to ask audiences to confront their own mortality and their own sense of carpe diem (understood as both a point of inspiration and exasperation), he also thoughtfully shares his reality as a man with a chronic heart condition needing to make constant potentially-life-altering decisions about foods to eat/avoid and activities to do/avoid. For those who develop chronic conditions, the transition from an invincible body to one negotiating limitations can be challenging, as evidenced by Plimsole’s quite legitimate anger/conversations with God/attempts to reconcile past relationship. Reflecting on my own experience of writing about my illness many years ago, which I did in a series called BALL & Other Funny Stories About Cancer, I am quite moved by Plimsole’s honest anger and frustration on display.

By inviting the ever-changing heartbeats of the audience into the space as an essential set piece, The Inevitable Heartbreak of Gavin Plimsole asks audiences to reflect on the diversity of life and experience and how, despite us drinking energizing Redbulls or calming chamomile, our hearts and brains are still quite unpredictable – and this is a reality as horrifyingly frightening as it might be deliriously freeing. (BL)

The Inevitable Heartbreak of Gavin Plimsole is on at 13.40 at Pleasance Dome until August 29th (not 16th). Venue is wheelchair accessible, hearing loop available - https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/inevitable-heartbreak-of-gavin-plimsole

A few other projects on hearts, heartbeats and heartbreak:

Sheila Ghelani’s Covet Me Care for Me: http://www.sheilaghelani.co.uk/covet-me-care-for-me/

Ira Brand’s Keine Angst: http://www.irabrand.co.uk/?works=keine-angst

Marina Tsartsara and Miriam King’s work: http://marinatsartsara.weebly.com/blog

On Hubbub – A Wellcome Trust funded project, run by an interdisciplinary team looking at work, rest, noise, tumult: https://wellcome.ac.uk/press-release/exploration-rest-and-busyness-announced-first-project-hub-wellcome-collection

On Waiting for Diagnosis – Fuel’s While You Wait Series: http://www.fueltheatre.com/projects/while-you-wait

DECISION TIME // Juliette Burton

Juliette has a big decision to make. Should she marry the love of her life? But it’s not that simple.   Not only is he the love of her life, he is the reason she is still alive.

We are taken on a decision lead tour of Juliettes’ life which builds to the point where she is now. From her first experiences of otherness to the first point of her taking control in her life and her eating disorders, her dalliances with self harm to the critical moment where she has written the note, she has the knives and she’s ready for the final act.

This show is not about the philosophy of free will, causality or determinism. Kant and Spinoza don’t even enter the room. From the outset we explore the pathology of cognitive distortion. If we decide one way we may hurt, upset or knowingly please, we may experience guilt or pleasure, we may be loved more or rejected. Decision making can be fraught.

We are slowly exposed to some of Burtons’ psychiatric history, her diagnoses and symptoms. Her previous decisions and impulses take on a new gravitas. For most people certain decisions or actions are easy, for example getting out of bed is just something we do, an almost automatic process.

What if you are so depressed you are unable to get out of bed, clothe or feed yourself?  What if you are so gripped by anxiety, decision making becomes impossible? What if the only viable option feels like suicide? For some, there is no alternative, for some though at the crucial moment, almost in that final act they find a reason to survive, to sustain, to want to realise the potential of the most meaningful version of their life.

The ultimate choice we make maybe whether to live or die, to kill ourselves or not. Suicide generally isn’t a laughing matter but Burton found her reason to live and the strength to share it. We are taken to the point under her bed where, with knife cutting flesh the phone rings, missed messages from her lover and the sound of the key in the door.

The awkward discomfort in the room is palpable, but it is a subject which needs discussing. In 2014 one person took their own life every 40 seconds. One in four will be affected by serious mental health issues in the coming year. The statistics are staggering yet we are still not addressing the issues. There is still a disparity between the funding and waiting lists of physical health and mental health services. The stigma of discussing mental health only compounds the impact on our wellbeing. It is definitely time to make a decision, as the mental health foundation say it’s ‘Time to Change’. (AM)

Juliette Burton: Decision Time is on at 16.30 at Gilded Balloon Teviot until 28th August (not 15th). Wheelchair Access, Level Access, Wheelchair Accessible Toilets - https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/juliette-burton-decision-time

Assisted Suicide: The Musical by Liz Carr premieres at Unlimited Festival at the Royal Festival Hall on September 10th and 11th: http://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/whatson/assisted-suicide-the-musical-97416

The Suicide by Suhayla El-Bushra, after Nikolai Erdman (1928), recently at the National Theatre: https://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/shows/the-suicide

Prevention of young suicide: https://www.papyrus-uk.org/