I’m Ready to Talk Now review – unsettling bedtime story for an audience of one

Traverse, EdinburghOliver Ayres tucks you in for an intimate account of his diagnosis with a severe and chronic immune condition, and the effect of transphobiaThis is a one-to-one show that requires you to get up-close to its sole performer, Oliver Ayres. He leads you in, puts you at ease, and offers to tuck you into a bed in the room (there is an option to keep sitting if you prefer).The show is a combination of recorded monologue, music and physical theatre. Words and music pour into your head through headphones. Ayres speaks of an unnamed illness that leaves him in acute pain. He is later diagnosed with the rare and severe chronic immune condition called Stevens-Johnson syndrome, although it is not named in the recording. It leaves Ayres disabled and his story speaks of his nearness to death at the age of 20. In the course of his emergency admission, a doctor puts his atypical symptoms down to the testosterone that Ayres is taking (he is trans). It is a dissonant moment, not dwelt on, but it buzzes with alarm. Ayres adds to the story through occasional, oblique, movement. Continue reading...

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