MAY CONTAIN NUTS (*)

One day Skye Loneragan had to see a psychiatrist to prove to a BBC commissioning editor that her own father’s schizophrenia, which she had written about in a play, was realistic.

“It is born of the time I had to see a psychiatrist to prove to a BBC commissioning editor that my father’s schizophrenia, which I had fictionalised in a play, was considered realistic. At the time, the editor had described the inclusion of this particular mental illness as a ‘hot potato’. If I wanted my radio play to progress beyond that pitching round, and be selected for broadcast, perhaps I could verify that the illness was an accurate, an authentic one? Perhaps I could provide proof that my father’s illness, fictionalised in a play, was real? So, I found myself seeing a psychiatrist. I asked them to please verify that what they read seemed real, once I had made it up. And to please put that on Letterhead.”

May Contain Nuts* is a new comedy questioning what drives a need to verify fictional depictions of mental illness as ‘true’, and who gets to decide. It questions what lived and ‘unlived’ experience might be, the stigma around ceratin content, and what warning for content relies on if everyone has their own version of what might be difficult to see, hear, feel, touch, sense.

Shared as work-in-progress through the Scottish Mental Health and Arts festival’s Manifesto day, research and development supported by Creative Scotland, directed by Robert Softley Gale.

“…this has power…deeply affecting humour and the frustrations of Loneragan are heartfelt and deeply appreciated…a very good conceit … seeing anxieties performed as characters would be marvellous and take us from the realms of a Wonderful World of Dissocia to a new level of understanding. And that is exactly what revolutionary thought should begin with…” Donald Stewart, SMHAF work in progress sharing

Extract:

“It’s a very posh office. I don’t think they get many folk in here dripping sea salt all over the place….I seem to be reeking a little and there are bits of family hanging off me. I just caught a reflection of what my hair is doing at the back in the gloss of fireplace marble. There is some kind of seaweed stuck in it, the rubber stalk of it is poking out where my neatly curled ponytail was…”