Hearing Things
Omnibus Theatre, London

AROUND a quarter of the population experience mental health problems each year yet it’s still a subject many prefer not to discuss and one with a fair amount of stigma attached.

Philip Osment breaks the silence in his compelling drama Hearing Things, in which we witness psychiatrist Nicholas (Jim Pope) struggling with the demands of his work, the needs of his patients, his father’s advancing dementia and his own wellbeing.

Ingeniously, the nature of mental health and identity is explored by the three actors who, portraying six different characters, often take the audience by surprise when swapping between them.

Thus Daniel Ward is both Nicholas’s father Patrick and Innocent, one of his patients struggling with schizophrenia, while Jeanette Rourke is Innocent’s mother, Nicholas’s wife and another of his patients.

This skilled transitioning serves to blur the distinction between the “well” and the “ill” as we watch Nicholas — doing his best to cope with the devastating effects of cuts to mental health services — doubting himself after an incident at work.

His personal relations suffering, we delve into his past and witness events that weigh heavily upon his present.

A play that draws on the real experiences of psychiatrists and patients, Hearing Things is highly poignant in conveying the effects that institutions have on those who live and work in them.

But there’s hope — some material for Hearing Things comes directly from workshops in hospitals which are aimed at employing theatre-devising techniques to build rapport and create empathy with patients.

The fact that some have made such progress as to be granted an early discharge says much about the untapped potential of the creative process.

Runs until January 27, box office: omnibus-clapham.org.