Preview: What if the plane falls out of the sky?, Loco Klub

“What if how I feel about the world and myself at 4am, what if that is the truth? What if I get killed in an avalanche and most people are slightly relieved that they now don’t have to read my novel? What if the only reason the plane is able to stay in the sky is because I am thinking really encouraging thoughts about the wings?”

Bristol-based experimentalists Idiot Child present this playful and unusual tale of fear, anxiety, and the idiosyncratic and frankly absurd strategies we employ to manage our sense of impending doom. Here’s director Anna Harpin.

“the audience will join the residents of Fear Camp” – can you tell us a bit more about the format of the show? Will audiences become involved in any way (a prospect likely to trigger more fear)?
The format of the show is that the audience have come along to a Fear Camp taster session and so they will meet the glorious folk who run the camp and hear about their lives and their therapeutic practices. It is really playful and interactive – but not in the usual sense of audience participation.
In this show you might play a game of bingo or be offered a cocktail or some Mini Cheddars (these all actually happen), but no one is going to ask you to introduce yourself and talk about your anxieties. Thank god.
So it is a funny, slightly weird, piece of theatre that will involve you as much as you want to be involved. Like all Idiot Child shows, though, the joke is always on us.

What are your own pet anxieties (and coping mechanisms for said anxieties)?
Oh god, where to begin… I find anxiety to be a very generous friend so I have numerous pet anxieties. They range from the banal, like trying to get off a really crowded bus or finding yourself on the wrong side of the Tube when you want to get off, to predictable things such as meeting new people or being crap in bed or walking from the changing room to the pool confidently, right the way through to the more existential horror of just being alive and getting it right.
I think we all assume everyone else is far more competent than ourselves and so that’s a lovely germ pool for generating all manner of worries. My coping mechanisms range from terribly sensible things such as drinking camomile tea and seeing a therapist to perhaps less ideal strategies such as: wine. Oh, and writing a play all about fear and anxiety.

Do you think a certain degree of anxiety and fear is a good thing, keeping us all alert and vigilant among the jungle of modern life?
I think it’s inevitable. And, at heart, anxiety is a way of preparing you for threat and danger – so, in that respect, it’s often your body communicating with itself about what is going on. However, I think we need to think about the levels and types of pressures we are putting on ourselves and one another, as I think lots of people are really struggling.
A bit of striving is good but, overall, the drive to be fitter, faster, more productive is making everyone feel inadequate against a fantasy of happiness and success.
But really the show is about trying to celebrate being ordinary and vulnerable and weird. ‘Cos actually that’s OK. And enough.

Idiot Child have done some really fascinating shows, all linked by a certain kind of theme. What is that? Are you interested in exploring frailities, awkwardnesses, etc?
Hmmm. What’s the theme…? I wonder if the theme is loneliness? Or perhaps outsiders? As a company, we are interested in playing with really tricky feelings or experiences that we all have but don’t necessarily always talk about, such as inadequacy or abandonment or failure or dread, but in a tender and hopefully pretty funny way.
I think we are keen to look at how hard it can be to be alive, and to try and share that in ridiculous and sincere ways with an audience. So far people have responded really positively to this aspect of our work, and my hunch is that it is reassuring to know other people feel as weird as you do.

What would you hope to send audiences away thinking and feeling?
I want an audience to walk away feeling uplifted, like they’re good enough and they always have been, just the way they are. I want an audience to walk away feeling just a bit more alright with being their own weird self. And I want them to walk away having had a wicked night at the theatre. And slightly drunk. This show is quite unusual so hopefully they will feel like they’ve been at a really fun event rather than at a play. Come along, you’ll have a lovely time.

What if the plane falls out of the sky? will be at The Loco Klub from Tuesday, May 9 to Saturday, May 13 as part of Bristol Old Vic’s Studio Walkabout Season. For more info and to book tickets, visit www.bristololdvic.org.uk/what-if-the-plane-falls-out-of-the-sky.html