Edinburgh Fringe 2025
Sectioned – Schrödinger’s Mental Health
Poppy Radcliffe
Genre: Autobiography, Solo Performance, Spoken Word
Venue: Little Cellar at Laughing Horse @ West Nic Records
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
‘Am I ill, or am I well? Because I surely can’t be both.’ Poppy Radcliffe combines poetry, filmmaking and dramatic lecture to take us into the confusion and pain of the sectioned. To expose what happens when the services get it wrong. With increasing deaths in hospitals each year, something has to change. Alongside her experience she offers ways that might happen.
Review
Poppy Radcliffe presents an intelligent and deeply personal one-woman performance exploring what it means to live with a diagnosis of bipolar disorder — and how that label begins to define not just the person, but every interaction they have.
At its core, this is a show about identity, perception, and power. The performer skilfully weaves her personal story with evidence from NHS reports, mental health statistics and media headlines. This is not anecdote, the grounding in research adds weight and urgency to her lived experience.
The visual backdrop – a mix of video, images, and striking headlines – adds richness and resonance, though at times it competes with Radcliffe’s presentation for our attention. The visuals are strongest when they add to the focus of what’s being said. Some of the interplay between screen and stage works beautifully; other moments might benefit from further refinement to ensure each element serves the whole.
What elevates this piece is its layered approach: she doesn’t just tell us what happened to her, she analyses it, challenges it, and offers ideas for change. There is depth here, and a refusal to simplify. She is compelling when she steps away from the lectern to perform her poetry, learned and embodied – these are the moments the show breathes and soars.
Her insight into how neurodiversity and mental health crises are handled – the contrast between growing awareness around autism and ADHD versus the discomfort and fear still surrounding bipolar disorder – is thought-provoking. So too is her observation that workplaces rally around physical illness but often distance themselves from those in mental health crisis. Return to work sometimes simply doesn’t happen.
Threaded through it all are ways in which services could improve, often in small but significant ways. Her critique of the infantilising nature of many creative activities is particularly sharp: why, she asks, should highly creative people in crisis be handed crayons?
This is not just a performance – it’s a provocation, a question, a challenge. It deserves a place at every mental health conference. With so much to teach – both professionals and the public – this is a voice that needs to be heard.
A powerful ground breaking approach to sharing deeply personal experience in ways that might just effect significant change.
