THEATRE: Cracking Up!

Developed by NHS Surrey, Cracking Up! is a variety night based on the experiences of people with mental health conditions. Only one of the performers is disabled but it still feels like the contributors have been empowered, getting their stories across, rather than being exploited for laughs or patronised.

Edgy jokes from the cheeky compere, John Ryan, link sketches performed by actors, poetry, and both stand up comedy and raw personal revelations from Gareth Berliner (pictured). The format felt familiar: it reminded me of Catholic youth weekends I used to go on in Derry where the audience would be laughing at a skit one minute and crying at a sad story the next. It’s a heady mix if you want to slip in a worthy statistic, whether that is that one in four people will have a mental health problem or that there are three people in the one holy trinity. Cunningly manipulative! And suspiciously enough, John Ryan did mention his Irish Catholic roots a few times.

In the first half Gareth Berliner performed a well-crafted stand-up routine about his Crohn’s disease. I’d first heard this material at last year’s Liberty, the disability arts festival in London and though it’s funny, I was wondering what it had to do with mental health. All became clear in the second half when Berliner told the blackly comic tale of how his physical illness led to a descent into depression and a failed suicide attempt before he finally told his family and asked for help.

In the most simple and most effective part of the show, John Ryan got a hapless volunteer from the audience to attempt to juggle as he threw more balls at him. This funny scene has stuck in my mind and helps me take a lighter view of making a balls of things.

Cracking Up! producer, Maya Twardzicki says: “The scripts of both the sketches and the comedians were informed by focus group discussions with about 60 men from different demographic groups – two of the sessions were held with men with experience of mental ill health at mental health voluntary organisations.

“The poet Tom Iddon who wrote the Stigma poem, read by John Ryan, has direct experience of mental ill health. In previous shows we have also used another comedian and musician who also have direct experience.

“The artwork shown during the interval was all created by people with experience of mental ill health at Art Matters in Surrey.”

Kelly Mullan

• For further information on Cracking Up! contact Maya Twardzicki on m.twardzicki@nhs.net