Review from: Summerhall, Edinburgh Festival Fringe; 1st Aug 2024
This solo performance from acrobat and occasional psychosis-sufferer Margot Mansfield is a surprisingly light and warmly human take on an experience that could so easily take us to dark places. That’s not to say it isn’t deep. The consequences of sleeplessness, the impact on a life – and on the lives around her – are curated with a huge degree of love and care, as Margot enacts and shares her experiences with Brief Limited Intermittent Psychotic Symptoms (B.L.I.P.S.).
In a costume somewhere between a nightdress and a straight-jacket, Margot enters a space that is half clinical, half a home: hospital noises, a metal bed-frame and gauze sheets sit alongside a little occasional table, lamp and old-fashioned dial telephone. The scene is set for a mixing of realities, and a blippy structure of intermittence, repetition and random seeming connections conjure a sense of Margot’s encounters with the world. This is a really well constructed show that brings us into communion in more ways than one.
Much like the previous work director Jess Love brought to Edinburgh Fringe in 2018 (Notorious Strumpet, Dangerous Girl, which she performed herself), B.L.I.P.S. combines scripted scenes with direct audience interactions, bringing us into the surreal world of mental health differences in a way that feels easy and natural. It is a theatre show created by a circus artist, where episodes of handbalance, hooping, and hurling her body serve to illustrate inner states, amid a suite of multimodal techniques such as lip-syncing, home video footage and dictionary definitions provided by AI voiceover.
Most powerful to me is the wonderfully low-key inclusion of family voices, as we hear interview footage from Margot’s dad, bed-time story narration from her mum, and vox-pops perspectives from other B.L.I.P.S. sufferers. This is not a ‘poor me’ story. It’s a solidarity story. A sharing. An understanding. A levelling. A connection and, perhaps, a lifeline.
Margot Mansfield is a charming performer, and the 10am performance slot at Edinburgh Fringe should not put you off. This show is a gently envigorating start to your day, and a valuable insight into a rarely showcased condition.
