Liz Richardson completes her return stint at HOME on Saturday 22 July before starting an 11-day run at this year’s Edinburgh Festival from 2 – 13 August 2017.
This is not your average stage performance; three toilets, some yoghurts and one incredibly honest woman centre stage sharing her personal journey from being diagnosed with ulcerative colitis (UC) to living minus colon, fitted with an ileostomy bag and beyond.
Liz literally shows us her insides as she humorously (and humanely) takes on the various roles of her carers, co-workers, fellow patients, friends and even her stoma, whilst highlighting the difficulties she and others like her face every day.
Finding it harder to play the parts of her nearest and dearest Liz hilariously bribed audience members to help her tell her story which added just the right amount of pathos.
Lifting the toilet lid on UC in graphic detail and with painfully black humour she helps us understand more about the condition and a little of the shame felt by people affected with this type of illness and how they can suffer in anguished silence trying to hide their symptoms from a society which can feel outraged when others actually dare to sh*t in a public toilet and have the audacity to leave a smell.
As Liz says “I’m exposing myself in hopes that more people will do the same” and this whole performance ending with the good-humoured plain talking Skype call we see between Jasmine and Liz might just help with that.
