★★★★
Olivia Levine’s ‘Unstuck’ is a sexy, cheeky hour of look-mum-no-hands storytelling, where Olivia is completely unafraid to bare all. Using a football, an LED candle, and a bowl of oranges, she takes us on a wicked romp through a lifetime of intrusive thoughts, compulsions, and OCD spikes; particularly how they affect her relationships with her family and past girlfriends. This, I learned, is known as ‘relationship OCD’, and Olivia blends hilarious and sometimes painful stories of breakups, month-long affairs and going on holiday with her ex and her ex’s girlfriend (standard practice in lesbian relationships) with illuminating asides about how her OCD symptoms impact her perception of reality; and occasionally manifest in her doing something “crazy”.
By no means is this a pity-party. Shows like Olivia’s do wonders to inform about and normalise disabilities, and hers in particular shines as she intertwines her symptoms and explanations so deeply within her life story; she wouldn’t be the person she is without her OCD, yet there is no sense that this is a life story told from hindsight. She still has her compulsions, although they are likely different from the ones she shares onstage, and is coming to terms with the fact that she will, on occasion, do things that other people might deem “crazy”.
Olivia Levine: Unstuck is on at Just the Tonic at the Mash House till August 25th
