Act Three

24 – SEARCH LIGHT

There is a pause and BRYONY suddenly flails under the sheet, panicking. She takes the torch and frees herself of the tent and stands up. Nothing can be seen apart from her torch light. TIM isn’t there.

She shines the torch into her hand and we see her face light up, she is searching the room with her eyes. Looking for her true love.

She shines the torch onto the audience looking for him.

B:	Tim?
	She shines the torchlight on the floor as if searching for a body in long grass.
	She shines the torch into the rig looking for a body.
	She hears something behind her.
	She spins round and slowly shines her torch up TIM’s body on the opposite side of the stage. He is trying to escape. Caught in the act.
	TIM has a tangled mass of rope over his whole head. A stark low light comes up on him. Frozen.
	BRYONY goes to him, she tries to remove his rope head twice, both times he stops her. She gives up and turns him round from the audience to protect him.
	The recording machine turns on. This time it is BRYONY’s voice.

26 – RECORDING 8

B:

When I think of you being ill, at my most terrified…that makes me most terrified… Like our bedroom window, I couldn’t look at it after you’d said about it. I couldn’t even open it. I imagined, ooh i’m gonna cry now, I… haha. (Crying, voice trembling.) Like what would I do if I found you there? (Voice breaks.) and you were still alive, how would I get you down? How would I go get you? But I kind of understand its not that you want to do that but I didn’t really, like what would I do, how would I rescue you? (Sound of TIM kissing BRYONY.) I decided that I’d climb on the wall where the cats sit and I’d push your feet up until somebody came.

Pause.

27 – APOCALYPTIC LIGHT

A very low rumble begins. And a light on the floor at the back of the space comes on. It is industrial, not like the other lights, it starts low and greenish, but slowly it warms up and become blindingly bright. Right into the eyes of the audience. It turns TIM and BRYONY into glowing silhouettes.

BRYONY walks around the space slowly taking in all the mess. TIM watches her.

It feels like the aftermath of a disaster of some kind. BRYONY begins to try and tidy up. She tries to throw the tent back up into the air but fails and sits down in the wreckage. TIM sits beside her. They stare at each other.

Pause.

B:	I worry about you all the time. Like what if you get ill again, really bad…how will we manage, how will I look after both of you. And I can’t help but feel like you are still hiding and I need you right now Tim.
	She lowers her head.
	But we can leave it here if you like, they can go. If this is what you want,
	She puts her mic down, covers her face. TIM pauses for a moment and then he stands. He removes his rope head, takes the mic stand to centre stage and pauses for a few seconds longer.

28 – TIM’S SPEECH

Delivered very very slowly.

T:	Hi I’m Tim.
	Pause.
	I have chronic depression and acute anxiety.
	Pause.
	This means that sometimes without my medication I can sink very deep and think about killing myself.
	Pause.
	But it also means that most of the time I am perfectly happy and I forget it even exists.
	Pause.
	But do you know what. I have recently begun to become proud of it.
	Pause.
	See for those eight years I believed that my illness emasculated me. I bought into the idea that feeling sad, crying and doubting the purpose of existence made me LESS of a man, less of a person. I buried my depression so deeply that no one could see it. I used so much of my energy faking it that I just made myself worse. But where did it get me?
	Pause.
	Over these past year or so I have had to ask myself… why did I do that?
	If I had any other illness I would have been on the internet every minute of the day trying to get myself better, but I didn’t, I was too ashamed to even type it in.
	And I have had to conclude that it has to do with conditioning. That the true version of what it takes to be a real man was not in fact the ideal that I was sold. That any of us were.
	Pause.
	A real man knows how to speak about his emotions.
	A real man shows compassion and integrity.
	And a real man understands that there is no such thing as a real man. (He does inverted commas with his hands.)
	So I agreed to do this show in case it helped people like me. But also because deep down I knew it would help myself. As simple as that sounds, that is why I am here, in this fucking outfit, dancing around on a stage with my mental girlfriend.
	BRYONY stands up and starts organising the stage.
	I have been told that to tame the beast you have to know the beast. When I first got depression the symptoms were not what I expected them to be and if I can pass one thing on to you it is how to easily identify them, in case they creep up you or someone you know and love. So we made a dance that highlight what they are. I’m still not sure why we couldn’t have just listed them. But this is Clinical Depression in its simplest format…with mambo music.

29 – THE SYMPTOMS DANCE

The duo perform the symptoms dance.

They twist and bop in unison to ‘Mambo Del Ruletero’ by Perez Pardo holding up signs that detail the main symptoms of depression as they go…

Fatigue

Poor Concentration

Worthlessness

Agitation

Achy Bones

Inappropriate Guilt

Indecisiveness

No Appetite

Insomnia

Recurrent Thoughts of Death

TIM heads back to his mic, he is gaining confidence now at public speaking.

30 – TIM’S REPRISE

T:	We take the view that we manage my depression together. That we will manage it for the rest of our lives. That we will openly talk about it to our little boy and most importantly that we will never be ashamed of it.
	We deal with the disease just like diabetes or asthma. Just like the millions of other people who do exactly the same thing. Tablets or no tablets, politically motivated to change the world or getting on with it behind closed doors.
	Mental illness is a fact of life that needs demystifying and de-stigmatising. Our aim with this show is to do our little bit to raise awareness of the fact that suicide is the biggest killer of men under forty-five in the UK…that men are struggling and they need our help.
	BRYONY is setting up the guitar, mic, stools and machine in a little cluster in the wreckage of the tent.
	I’ve been told that chronic depression is a life long illness. So I know that at some point in the future I may be ill again. I feel I am only halfway towards understanding my brain and my illness. And there are limits as to how much I can talk about it. And that is frustrating.
	Right now I am on a low dose of citalopram to manage my depression. I am in the process of coming off the tablet again, over a much longer period of time. I think it’s a good idea
	BRYONY joins him at his mic stand.
B:	I’m not so sure.
T:	She is worried about the baby.
B:	He still doesn’t talk about lots of things.
T:	She is sometimes unhealthily obsessed with my illness.
B:	No I just want to be fully prepared.
T:	I feel more prepared than I have ever been.
B:	Then perhaps we will make another show next year!
T:	No chance!
	They laugh. She goes and sits on her stool.
	To finish I wrote Bryony a song on my guitar. Because I am supposed to be some kind of artist now! It’s about the fact that sometimes even now I just want to hide until it all goes away. That sometimes it is hard and not something I feel I can deal with. This is ‘The Duvet Song’.
	He sings ‘The Duvet Song’ to BRYONY.
T:	(Singing.)
	I hear the birds celebrate the dawn sun
	I hear your words but I feel like I weigh a tonne
	I see your eyes welling up. I’m sorry
	So I summerise in the code we use…that won’t MAKE you worry
	Under the duvet
	Under the duvet day
	I can hear your footsteps arriving home from work
	I hope my numbness doesn’t drive you too beserk
	I hear you flick the faithful kettle on
	(B: I love a cup of tea.)
	And you lie beside me slurping tea, there’s just no question
	Under the duvet
	It’s under duvet day
	That’s all I can say
	It’s a cliché, I still whisper as I wait for it to rage
	It’s an under the duvet
	It’s an under the duvet day
	She kisses him. The lights fade to blackout.
	They bow.
	The End.
B:	Well that was our love story. Sorry gross. But we also recognise that that may be some of your stories too, and if that is the case we like to take this moment at the end of the show to say tonight you have met two fellow members of your tribe. And if you ever wanted to email us then all of our details can be found on your free sheets or at Bryony and Tim dot com. (She holds up a good luck doll.) and these little guys were for luck, and we wanted to wish all of you good luck out there, we hope you argue about black socks for the rest of your lives.
	Thanks for coming to our show.