Guest post from @AtkiTeach
“Oh fuck!” We’ve all said it. We’ve all thought it. We’ve all forced it out between gritted teeth, eyes simultaneously closing and drifting skyward. “Oh fuck!” “Ohhhhhh fuck!” “Oh fuuuuuuuuuuck.” “Oh FUCK!” The way you say it depends on the ‘Oh fuck’ moment: is it life, career or relationship threatening, painful or foolish, one that’ll burn in solitude inside you or one to share with friends? ‘The Oh Fuck Moment’ explores each of them, from the simple ‘what’ to the ‘how’ and the ‘why’ and ‘the what comes next?’.
I didn’t know what to expect from ‘The Oh Fuck Moment’. I’d read Theatre in the Mill’s description, which is why we booked, but nothing else. I knew they’d been on at the Edinburgh Fringe, and scooped the coveted Scotsman Fringe First Award, so I assumed it’d be something different, something unusual and, above all, something funny. And it was.
What’s great about Theatre in the Mill is that they’re not afraid to take risks, to put on pieces which are different, unusual, even challenging. This may have been my first Theatre in the Mill performance, but their colours were nailed to their mast as they chose to perform outside of their home and comfort… and so we found ourselves in University of Bradford’s amazing Richmond Building, airy and light, before being taken a short walk across campus to the School of Engineering’s building, up a couple of flights of stairs, then asked to wait. In a corridor. Curiouser and curiouser.
A few minutes later, Chris Thorpe (writer and actor) came to meet us, in a disheveled suit replete with lanyard exclaiming ‘HUMAN RESOURCES’ to invite us to the performance. People looked at him quizzically; he reassured us with “Don’t worry, I’m not acting yet… I just don’t know what to say” and we laughed but nervously – is he lying? Are we an audience yet? Is this part of it?
We were ushered into a largish office meeting room, with a very large table in the middle, covered in stationery which was purposefully placed in a random fashion. I was still wondering if the performance had begun when Hannah Walker (poet and co-performer), immaculately attired in a business suit, offered me a cup of tea. Making me more comfortable curiously made me less comfortable and again I wondered if we’d started, and, as I took my mug to my seat, I wondered. And we all sat down and wondered. And I saw the post-it on the desk and kind of wondered what that was for, but I knew. And then it started, or continued depending on how you look at it.
The room was small, in comparison to a theatre, and personal, in comparison to a show, and intimate, in comparison to a theatre or a show, so, for once, I’d like to use the performers’ first names in a review. Bad style maybe, but right, I think, for ‘The Oh Fuck Moment’: I feel like I know them a little.
Chris and Hannah led us into those ‘Oh Fuck’ moments through stories, a mixture of short analogies (stepping on a rake; being caught cheating; flicking the wrong switch at a nuclear power plant), to real life, specific examples of when things go badly, deeply wrong, to in-depth, personal stories, told with wit and sincerity, and smiles and regret. We laughed. We cringed. We gasped in places.
I think we knew what the post-its were there for. I did. “Write down one of your ‘Oh fuck’ moments”, Chris told us, adding, pointedly, “But don’t put your name on.” Ah, a safety net. The screen of anonymity giving us just that little bit of extra freedom which would allow us to go that little bit further, be that little bit more daring, in our confessions. We scribbled.
Then, at random, some were selected to share their own ‘Oh fuck’ moments. No anonymity but, if you didn’t want to share, you didn’t have to. The audience became the performance and all chose to put their ‘Oh fuck’ moments out there. They were trivial and silly and poignant and embarrassing and excellent examples of those ‘Oh fuck’ moments we all have. It was cathartic; it created a bond.
Chris and Hannah continued, switching between stories and poems, each encouraging us to think about why we have that ‘Oh fuck’ moment, and questioning how we should react to them. It wasn’t about schadenfreude, though; it was about realising that ‘Oh fuck’ is natural and something we all share and something, if reacted to well, positive and life affirming. Those ‘Oh fuck’ moments have a reason to be there, and they’re important and they’re beautiful, as demonstrated expertly by Hannah’s last poem whose blank lines were filled by more of our “Oh fuck’ moments.
Afterwards, I didn’t know what to think, but I knew how I felt. ‘The Oh Fuck Moment’ made me think about times when I had fucked up, about those moments that I remember with horror and disgust, those that still, months, years after the event, make me exhale or cringe or blush when I recollect them… and it made me feel better about them. It wasn’t that I’d heard how people had had ‘Oh fuck’ moments against which mine pale in comparison, but that everyone – everyone – has them, and it made me feel good that we’re all fallible and foolish and fuck-ups. And that’s a beautiful thought.
The performance itself was ‘different’, which can be such a pejorative word. But, in this instance, different was perfect, and the show couldn’t have worked any other way. The setting made me feel uncomfortable at first, like I was being set up for a fall or taken down a path which would end with me feeling daft… but it didn’t. It was just right because, by the end, I felt like I’d shared something with other people, and had been a part of something infinitesimally small but thoroughly positive. Chris and Hannah are great storytellers, and spin yarns so that everyone is sucked in. I did think the obvious pauses too much at times, as they overly elongated or punctuated the last line, trying to force a reaction or awkwardly ‘allowing time for that gem to sink in’: forced poignancy. However, maybe, with me, she was casting pearls before swine. I also wondered about the balance of the performance. Several of the stories are funny, through having a similar ‘Oh fuck’ moment or simple schadenfreude, but many are sad and ask the audience to empathise and sympathise with the performers themselves or subjects of the stories; I thought a retelling of an additional amusing story in the middle, moving us away from pity and bleak results of human error and back towards the silly and the whimsical, would’ve created both some light relief and an interesting juxtaposition which could’ve intensified both the highs and lows of the ‘Oh fucks’. This being said, I wasn’t the only one to have both my funny bone tickled and my heartstrings tugged: ‘The Oh Fuck Moment’ isn’t an emotional rollercoaster, but is a performance which will make you feel empathy and sympathy, pity and joy, heartache and heart-warmed.
At home, ‘Oh fuck’ moments popped into my head all night. I cringed at some and grinned at others, but I did feel better about all of them, and for that reason alone, you should go see ‘The Oh Fuck Moment’. Believe me, there’s nothing you’ve done or said that compares to the stories Chris and Hannah told, and you’ll come away feeling better and knowing that ‘Oh fuck’ is the only sane reaction to some situations.
‘The Oh Fuck Moment’ was performed by Chris Thorpe and Hannah Walker at University of Bradford’s Theatre in the Mill on 13 & 14 of February 2012, and will be on at West Yorkshire Playhouse on 26 to 28 April 2012.