News
Depression Cure Show
Depression Cure Show
Although there is plenty of sardonic humour, Jonathan Winfield’s A Depression Cure Show is a serious work. Clearly divided into a series of sketches, all of which deal with recovery from mental ill-health, it is a well-structured, taut solo performance that roves across difference approaches to recovery, never quite accepting anything at face value and weaving a bleak wit into surreal episodes and occasional slapstick antics.
The puppets, apparently relegated to video interludes, are the most powerful routines. Parodying the format of Play School, a classic of children’s TV that combined the jollity of its presenters with an old-fashioned collection of threadbare toys, these interludes are introduced as pilots for a proposed programme, a sort of introduction to mental health that sporadically devolve into darkness when the puppets express their particular characters.
Although it is disappointing that Winfield never brings the puppets on stage, and his manipulation of them is all pre-recorded, it is a brilliant conceit. His attempts to maintain decorum are undermined by the independence of his foils, who use their child-friendly charm to discuss some intense feelings.
Winfield has taken a common use of puppets in UK performance, a signifier of nostalgia, and applied to an urgent discussion. His analysis of the methods of recovery is respectful, and his representations of depression are respectful. His relationship with the puppets is restrained: he takes the traditional role of the adult ventriloquist, guiding the conversation and providing a sensible echo to their more exuberant, or withdrawn, personalities. Simultaneously mocking the optimism of the format and introducing the concepts that aided his recovery, Winfield’s putative series may serve as an interlude in this show, but could easily provide the framework for his performance.
While much of the comedy is muted, and Winfield’s bold comic personality is muted by the brevity of some routines, the balance
between the subject matter and the humour provides a show that is informative and entertaining, without ever embracing the full potential of the dark wit that emerges between the episodic routines.
Gareth K Vile
