How do you create a comedy about a serious, chronic medical condition? That is the question facing the audience as we entered The Birmingham Rep’s secondary theatre for the production of Bright Places – a self-proclaimed “darkly funny and deeply honest” play about living with Multiple Sclerosis (MS). We were welcomed to the theatre with cheery pop music, bright pink and purple lights and a costume rack of bedazzled outfits and feather boas, all hinting at the liveliness that was to follow.

Rather than the usual buzz created when the lights are lowered and the show is about to begin, the first two actors casually strolled onto the stage without announcement; introducing themselves and the concept of the ‘three-woman, one-woman show’, in which they would all play the main character, Louise, and a host of other additional parts. They interacted with a reassuring tongue-in-cheek humour that poked fun at pretentious artists tackling ‘serious’ issues, while also emphasising the personal nature of the play, which was written as an autobiographical account of the playwright Rae Mainwaring’s own experience of living with MS.

The promotional material promised glitter, cheesy pop music and fun costumes, and the production certainly delivered. Through its exploration of Louise’s struggles with being diagnosed with MS in her mid-20s, they used repeated club scenes, karaoke and dancing to symbolise the youth which she felt she had lost yet continued to long for. Throughout the show, the actors portrayed the emotional and physical highs and lows of MS with compassion and nuance. The multi-rolling between characters was done efficiently and clearly, often with props to aid the change in characters, with Aimee Berwick providing a particularly strong performance in both the main and supporting roles.

Crafting a fun and engaging play about a degenerative neurological condition is certainly a challenge, and both the cast and production design approached this task with energy and determination. Some highlights included a sparkly bedazzled NHS tunic, a devil/angel on the shoulder conversation between childhood teddies, and witty dialogue. However, the production frequently fell into some of the overused techniques associated with small theatre, such as clunky scene transitions with background music and moving black blocks, along with moments of rapidly overlapping dialogue that seemed to relish swearing and clichéd turns of phrase. Furthermore, the repeated diversion to a game show intended to highlight the symptoms or consequences of living with MS, accompanied by the cheesy host Myleene Sheath (which I can concede is a fairly good pun on myeline sheath – the part of the brain responsible for MS) occasionally lapsed from comedic to cringe and created an unnecessarily jarring diversion from the rest of the play.

The production certainly had its moments of humour and fun-spirited action, however, in a fairly small audience made up entirely of adults, the dance breaks and scenes replicating drunken raves had the potential to feel a bit awkward. I think that if the swearing was removed, the play’s comedic approach would be an incredible way of introducing young adults to the issues of living with a chronic illness, and could potentially be aimed at a younger demographic.

I would like to commend the show’s commitment to accessibility, which included physical character descriptions neatly interwoven into the opening scene and subtitles which ran throughout the show on a projector above the stage. Whilst the subtitles did occasionally ruin the punchline of a joke by appearing on the screen before the character delivered the line, the show proved that accessibility in theatre does not significantly detract from the performance and is something that more theatrical productions can aim to include.

Regardless of the moments of predictability or cringe, Bright Places was still an incredibly enjoyable show. I certainly learnt more about MS, both the science behind the condition and the emotional consequences of living with it, particularly as a young person who is mourning the loss of the future that they imagined for themselves. Overall, it fulfilled its promise to be a fun and cheesy show about a chronic condition, so if you’re able to withstand impromptu dance breaks and slightly predictable rhetoric, it’s well worth the watch.

Rating: 3.5/5 

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