by Jo O’Reilly

CONTINUING their tradition of showing thought provoking new work by young theatre companies, Olivier Award-nominee Caroline Horton’s ‘Mess’ graced the Studio Theatre of The playhouse last Thursday.

Providing an unusual approach to the tricky and uncomfortable subject of eating disorders, the show itself is loosely a play about a play, something alluded to throughout, with the show be reworked and self directed in front of the audience.

It’s a novel approach that should make the audience feel closer to the story, but actually I found it quite distancing. That said, the portrayal of Josephine’s eating disorder was one of the most accurate I have ever seen performed, it was clear work had been put into researching the subject in depth. It was a relief that rather than focus on the often presumed external pressures, the show delved into the complexities of the illness, anorexia as a coping mechanism for anxiety.

For that alone I wanted to like the play, yet I found myself put off by the way in which it was told. More performance art than theatre, which didn’t lend itself well to the subject. It could be that this was a way of making it relevant to a younger audience, but it felt like an attempt to make the subject fashionable, The Mighty Boosh on eating disorders.

Visually the character of Josephine spending the show in a dress, did little to show the uglier side of eating disorders. Monologues describing the unattractiveness of protruding hip bones, lost meaning when told by an attractive Horton looking like a slightly too slim Katy Perry. An interesting look at anorexia nervosa yes, a fresh portrayal of an often misunderstood illness, but it lost me as a coherent piece of theater.