Some Demon: A gripping, astute look at NHS eating disorder treatment
Amid concerns in the theatre world about the lack of support for up-and-coming writing talent, initiatives like the Papatango New Writing Prize are more important than ever. Its latest find is Laura Waldren’s astonishing debut, a drama which gives a fresh insight into NHS eating disorder treatment centres. Ambitious, astute and utterly gripping, Some Demons demonstrates precisely why the industry needs to actively invest in developing new voices.
As 18-year-old student Sam (Hannah Saxby) is inducted into the adult unit for the first time, we discover that this world bristles with rules governing even the most innocuous of activities such as owning a stuffed toy and intrusive questions about intimate bodily functions are the non-negotiable norm.
It’s a system that’s superficially rigid and stifling. It would be easy to make the syste tag-team enablers, nurses Leanne (Amy Beth Hayes) and Mike (Joshua James), the villains of the piece à la Nurse Ratched, but Waldren is too clever to resort to such clichés. Instead, she humanises the nurses, empathetically drawing out the deep-rooted personal motivations that compel them to try to do their best within an imperfect system that is as infantilising as the handprints on the wall - which resemble those in a school nursery - that mark an individual’s successful exit from the programme.
Then, of course, there are the other patients. Sirine Saba’s Zoe is in her 40s, obsessed with cleaning and a veteran of the system who knows the drill and how to game it. Meanwhile, Nazia (Witney White) overexercises by walking with her dog who, as a result, develops lacerations on its paws which become infected. Mealtimes can be fraught affairs particularly for Mara (Leah Brotherhead) whose extreme behaviour can spiral into full blown crisis at the dinner table.
This dysfunctional family’s vacillation between hope and futility is how Waldren meditates on themes of psychology, disease, incarceration, control, the nature of trust and how history tends to repeat itself. As Sam will wonder, how many handprints are those of repeatedly returning patients? The constant reprise of Talking Heads’ Road to Nowhere underlines that point.
It does have its sombre moments, with graphic descriptions of how eating disorders ravage the body, mental faculties and interpersonal relationships. But while elements of Waldren’s witty script need fleshing out, it is also full of one-line zingers that help make this play simultaneously educational, informative and hugely entertaining. Waldren is one to watch.
