Review: Sh!t Theatre: Or What’s Left of Us, The Weston Studio, Bristol Old Vic – ’Life-affirming and profound: shot through with a raw beauty and humanity’

In Sh!t Theatre: Or What’s Left of Us, Rebecca Biscuit and Louise Mothersole draw repeatedly on the analogy of ‘kintsugi’- the Japanese art of mending broken pottery with gold, rendering it all the more beautiful for showing up the newly repaired cracks.

And in a show exploring their mutual experiences of grief (both for Biscuit’s partner Adam Brace, who was also the pair’s director, and for Mothersole’s late father, Tony) that’s exactly what they have created.

Less a ‘whodunnit’ than a ‘whydunnit’, told in the manner of a ‘folk revival sing-around’, they explore both their deeply personal, and collective understanding of losing a loved one, as well as the prevailing and ultimately unanswerable questions surrounding such a seismic event.

 

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“It is possible to be desperately sad and happy at the same time”, they assert – commenting more than once on the power of singing to elicit joy – or at least – a “joy-adjacent” feeling. It’s a world away from the “torpor” of the badgers they inhabit at the start of their performance.

And that skewers it. The power of this show lies in its unflinching emotional honesty, but it’s never a sad watch. It is like life in that respect; tragic circumstance is never far away from a funny memory or a killer line.

Louise Mothersole and Rebecca Biscuit in Sh!t Theatre: Or Whats Left Of Us

Interspersed with stories and close harmonies of elegiac folk songs – some dating back to the 1600s, Sh!t Theatre’s own narrative of “a bad year” focuses on their struggle to find a way still to be themselves; how to find routes to expression in the sudden absence of those whose presence had once felt so fundamental.

Mothersole and Biscuit’s patchwork of reflections characterise an amalgamation of real people they met at folk nights around the country, as they embraced the capacity of that musical tradition for fellowship and healing.

Their own close harmony singing is enthralling, but for the deliberate moments of discordance that occasionally puncture the melody, like the fresh waves of grief that can so often surprise, derail, and overwhelm a bereaved person.

It is a story of self-discovery, and, to a certain degree, of renewal. And then comes the gut punch; the section that elevates everything you have been watching and makes you reappraise it through a universal lens.

The folk analogy is perfect. As the pair say, perhaps not everyone knows this song yet but we all will someday. And in the absence of an answer to the ‘why’ of it all, there is comfort and solidarity to be found in how many people have sung these lines before.

While never shying away from choosing death as its central subject, this show is shot through with a raw beauty and humanity that continues to build until its final, mesmerising conclusion.

It’s the most life-affirming and profound piece of theatre I’ve seen in a long time.

And afterwards, an entirely optional but fervently recommended informal sing-around invites everyone to join together in the cleansing experience of communal singing.

Tonight’s audience members led us in stirring folk call and response pieces to gutsy renditions of Lou Reed’s Perfect Day and Bryan Adams’ The Summer of 69. All washed down with a Bohemian Rhapsody that none of us knew we needed until we were all right there, word just-about-perfect, punching the air through every beat. If you’re looking for an example of theatre as catharsis, you don’t need to look any further than this.

Sh!t Theatre: Or What’s Left of Us is at The Weston Studio, Bristol Old Vic on April 8-19 at 7.30pm (6.30pm on April 1). Tickets are available at www.bristololdvic.org.uk.

All photos: Ellie Kurttz

Read next:

• Review: My Mother’s Funeral: The Show, Bristol Old Vic
• ‘Watch Me Die’: The Bristolian director’s twisted interactive one-woman comedy set at a funeral
• Review: If You Fall, The Weston Studio, Bristol Old Vic – ‘An urgent, devastating and taboo-busting exploration of older people’s care’