★★★★★
Fascinating and terrifying, the fabulous Poppy Radcliffe does not hold back about her experience of being sectioned. Like a verbal boxing match, you hardly have time to recover from one blow when the next hits you. Eloquently written and performed with striking stage presence. A confessional poet who manages to make this serious subject funny. I am so excited to have found my 21st century Silvia Plath.
Poppy is an aeronautical engineer whose drive for perfection and success in both her career and her personal life led to her first break down. From psychosis to diagnosis of bipolar disorder via being arrested and two days later, sectioned, Poppy tells us what it is really like through a series of exquisite poems seamlessly linked by lyrical prose. Insights include, that she believes she was treated very differently from a man displaying the same traits of drinking too much and having a high sex drive and that it is the patients, not the staff that make life in a psychiatric ward acceptable.
Anyone with bipolar disorder is very aware that if they have not already been sectioned, it is always a possibility. This can be very frightening and it is refreshing to have someone who is prepared to talk about her story, no holes barred. She answered so many questions about the process and what it is like to be in hospital. It should, perhaps, come with an adult health warning that for anyone who has been sectioned, the performance could be triggering.
Sectioned was part of the Edinburgh Fringe.
Review by Iona Erskine
