Edinburgh Fringe 2015 review – Fake It ’Til You Make It: deeply affecting

An expressionistic hour brimming with invention was full of brutal honesty and broad comedy, says Veronica Lee
Naked emotions: Bryony Kimmings and Tim Grayburn tackle taboos in Fake It ’til You Make It at the Traverse
Roberto Ricciuti/Getty Images
10 August 2015

Bryony Kimmings and Tim Grayburn were six months into their relationship when she found his medication for depression, which he had kept hidden because he thought it made him less of a man. It was a shock but, as Kimmings wryly tells us, the performance artist in her saw her next show.

In an expressionistic hour brimming with invention, Kimmings charts their love story through comedy, poetry, music and movement, with some dodgy dancing and schmaltzy music thrown in.

Kimmings and Grayburn come on stage in their underwear with bags over their heads, neatly telegraphing the naked emotions they are about to explore and how many in society would rather not see mental health problems, their own or others’.

Tim, who is shy of revealing himself to the audience, wears a series of objects — clouds, an animal head, twisted rope — that obscure his face and signify various states of mind; it gives added poignancy to the moment when he casts them off, finally able to talk openly about his condition.

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1/50

There is much broad comedy in the hour, but we need it amid the brutal honesty about how mental illness affects sufferers and their loved ones. The recordings of Tim talking about his depression are deeply affecting.

Until August 30 (edfringe.com)

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