I Am Not Myself These Days @ Liverpool Playhouse

A pacy adaptation of Josh Kilmer-Purcell's best-selling autobiography, I Am Not Myself These Days is not exactly a quiet night at the theatre, and it's definitely not for the faint-hearted.

Written and beautifully performed by Tom Stuart and directed by Nick Bagnall, this brutally moving and hilarious Edinburgh Fringe festival hit is as laugh-out-loud funny as it is gut-wrenching. Stuart flits effortlessly from witty storyteller to tragic alcoholic as New York drag queen Aqua, desperately trying to make a relationship work with Jack, a high-class rent boy addicted to crack. 

The sparse stage and clever lighting allow full attention to be focused on Stuart’s physically arresting and occasionally uncomfortably brutal portrayal of a young man’s descent into the hedonistic party lifestyle of New York’s gay scene. It’s a story that could easily become farcical, but in his hands it becomes a wonderfully and respectfully profound tragicomedy which examines themes of identity, abuse and the pressures of conformist expectations on a young generation for whom sexuality is an increasingly fluid concept.

Interspersed with musical numbers from Aqua’s drag act, and some skilfully realised abstract scenes of drug abuse, sexual encounters and mental anguish, I Am Not Myself These Days offers a gripping and evocative portrayal of their effects and the consequences of passionate love affairs.

Compelled to adapt the novel for the stage to bring the personal journey of a marginalised member of society into a wider context, Stuart has succeeded in creating a painfully honest version that sings with the humour of everyday life juxtaposed with wild excess – and double-ended dildos.

If you don’t cry laughing at some of Aqua’s teeth-clenching anecdotes then you’ll surely have tears in your eyes as Stuart slowly packs away her identity forever at the denouement of this tender play.

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I Am Not Myself These Days is at Shoreditch Town Hall, London, 5-12 Mar (not 6)