Acute Psychotic Episode

An exploration into the process of mental breakdown recalled from first-hand experience certainly has the potential to make fascinating and educational material. Sadly, Acute Psychotic Episode (II) is little more than a therapy session. The performance combines dialogue, music and poetry in an attempt to convey three different perspectives on mental illness; first-person experience, a friend’s viewpoint, and the psychiatrist’s. Intending to interweave the real and the imaginary, it is largely unable to captivate the audience.

Worse, this technique serves only to break up Walker’s powerful and raw poetry describing his ‘timeless torment’. Recollections of lying in a burnt out basement and having surgery without anaesthetic would work better as a series of monologues. Reading from the page, Walker is hurried and nervous in his delivery as he recalls his descent into bi-polar disorder.

More banal and predictable than fresh and evocative, the performance lacks ingenuity. Reminiscent of A Beautiful Mind, he imparts an obsession for mathematical connections that induced paranoia, hallucinations and eventual belief of his involvement in MI6. Deeply embedded in the play is Walker’s and co-star Steve Antoni’s strange and ill-conceived notion that prescriptive drugs are some sort of new opiate for the masses. Lacking originality, it is a point badly made.

Devised to challenge stereotypes and the stigma attached to mental illnesses, Acute Psychotic Episode (II) fails to capture the intensity that Walker endeavours to create. Unfortunately, despite poignant moments, the performance risks resonating only with those who have had direct experience of such disorders.