Call Me If You Feel Too Happy

This show recounts one woman’s struggle with depression, following her experience in the 2004 tsunami and her subsequent diagnosis with bipolar disorder.

Opening as she attempts to pack her suitcase to leave for the States, performer Sophie Pelham’s distracted effort to find things in her messy room evoke the constant threat that fragile order is about to collapse into chaos. Extremely funny and sympathetic, Pelham, who co-wrote the show, is at her best when being open and direct. Comic characterisations of her psychiatrist, mother, fellow Priory residents and ex-boyfriends also excel.

Happy to poke fun at bipolar behaviour, Pelham enacts an uncomfortably funny scene as her character tries to seduce her psychiatrist while off her medication. Although often mocking and self-deprecating, this one-woman show is also a scathing satire on the diagnosis and treatment of bipolar disorder, questioning whether becoming a drugged vacant shell is any kind of solution.

Pelham is less convincing when acting upset – certain scenes would be more powerful without the forced emotion. These false notes aside, she delivers an otherwise persuasive performance, winning the audience over with her natural humour. The show is funny, poignant and insightful – as she says, all the best people have bipolar.