In 1995, while playing Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet for the RSC in Stratford, actor Mark Lockyer met the devil in a field on the banks of the Avon. Over the subsequent months, Lockyer, who was suffering from undiagnosed bipolar disorder, became increasingly erratic. On one occasion mid-performance, he seized a saxophone from a musician and gave his Courtney Pine impersonation. He was furious when the enraged stage manager thought it was Acker Bilk. But there was far worse: turmoil in his personal life and spiralling chaos that led to imprisonment, arson and eventually a mental hospital where he got the treatment he needed.
This is his often brutally funny account of living with mental illness, then and now. He spares neither himself nor others, including those in a position to give him work in the future. But while Lockyer’s 75-minute piece fits the pattern of one-person shows that detail triumph over adversity, it’s more interesting than that.
Living With the Lights On constantly plays on the fact that Lockyer is to some extent an unreliable narrator of his own story, and even as it makes great play of the informality of the setup – tea and biscuits for the audience – Ramin Gray’s staging acknowledges that Lockyer is giving a performance. Sometimes a larger-than-life one that is also painfully exposing, as it explores what can happen when mental illness strikes, and we go off-script and act out of character.
- At Young Vic, London, until 23 December. Box office: 020-7922 2922.
