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Bipolar Shame and Weirdness Creates a Show for Beth May

Richard Beck Richard Beck
24 Jul 2025

We talked to Beth May about her bipolar disorder and her EdFringe show Beth Wants the D.

To write comedy about something painful is to invite the audience into both the experience of pain, and also a bit of its remedy


Beth, your show is an autobiographical presentation that confronts death and delusion using your struggle with bipolar disorder. Can you explain the nature of the condition and how it affects your life?

I think the clearest way to explain bipolar disorder is to explain what it’s not. It’s not feeling really sad and then really happy the same day, it’s not mood swings at the drop of a hat, and it’s not an anger management issue. It’s more of an illness of energy – the dangers of having way too much energy or none at all. It’s characterised by episodes of mania and depression, which last weeks or months.

During manic episodes I’ve stayed up for days on end, found nonsensical mathematical connections in the letters of my friends’ names, and heard the voice of Satan. Episodes of depression have had me quitting jobs, moldering flat on my back in bed for weeks, escaping into drugs or alcohol, and praying for death. And then there are periods like right now, where I’m doing okay and these symptoms seem pretty damn extreme and, well, a little crazy. That’s just the nature of the illness – without treatment, my brain trends toward entropy, and when I’m healthy, I’m kind of left wondering what it all means. So I wrote this show about it.

What was your motivation for compiling the show?

My good friend Alice Stanley Jr, who is an incredible person and a ferociously talented writer, met me for dinner one night, and before the drinks were even ordered she told me, “I’ve been really interested in shame recently,” and I laughed because Alice is very funny in the way she says things like this – like with the assuredness and simplicity of a kid saying they’ll be an astronaut. But we started talking about the things we were ashamed of, which brought me to my life with bipolar disorder and the chaos that the illness has inflicted on me and my loved ones, and how hard it is sometimes to pluck pieces of my identity away from the things I’ve done or believed during episodes.

Alice told me to lean into the shame and the weirdness and see what I could get out of it. I think a couple of months later I had the first draft of Beth Wants the D. I’ve felt fear and shame at literally every step of this process, and it’s also been something that has excited and fulfilled me probably more than anything else I’ve written so far. Cheers to Alice.

What do you consider to be the advantages that comedy has over other forms of theatre for dealing with these sorts of issues?

I’m just speculating here, but speaking personally, comedy shows are scary whether I’m on stage or in the audience. When I’m on stage, I’m scared nobody will laugh. When I’m in the audience, I’m scared I’ll laugh at something I shouldn’t laugh at – like a tragic or offensive run-up to a punchline or something.

Also speaking personally, I think that fear is a really good thing. I think it makes both parties vulnerable to some extent, where that vulnerability leads to compassion and ultimately connection. To write about something painful is to invite the audience into the experience of that pain, but to write comedy about something painful is to invite the audience into both the experience of pain, and also a bit of its remedy (if laughter really is the best medicine).

What would you like audiences to take away from the show?

It is shockingly easy to go crazy. I know they call drowning the silent killer, but your head can just as easily slip beneath the surface of paranoia or delusion before anyone else notices, because the curtain between madness and sanity is very thin. When does religious belief become psychosis? When does grief become clinical depression? It’s really hard for most people to say. And that makes serious mental illness extremely scary. It’s both sneaky and propulsive; madness begets more madness.

But the message I hope audiences walk away with is that there is also a road back to sanity. It’s often much longer, and much more exhausting, but it is absolutely possible, and it is absolutely worth fighting for.

Richard Beck

Richard Beck

A graduate in theology and education, Richard acted and contributed to dance, drama and music productions throughout his teaching career. He joined Broadway Baby in 2014 and is now our Editor-in-Chief. He usually disappears to warmer climes for the winter to pursue his passion for travel.

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