Poppy Radcliffe comes to Brighton for the first time with her 5-star show SECTIONED, seamlessly interweaving crushingly honest poetry with prose to paint a picture of life under the mental health services.Sectioned at her peak, Poppy spiralled as she tried to come to terms with what happened and found herself in an ever enclosing web of interventions. Where physical health care focuses on recovery and independence, a diagnosis of serious mental health is considered a condition for life, one that must be managed, monitored and medicated, but when the illness is born from trauma, surely true recovery is possible.There is a fine line between madness and genius, and the course directors prize for a masters in Astronautics and Space engineering goes a way to justify accusations of genius for Poppy. Insanity is a matter of opinion, what matters is adherence to the rules of the era and public cohesion.Of course I knew I was insane, it ever was the wayBut never did I mean to find so much anger nor such much pain... Poppy takes you on her journey through than seven involuntary stays in mental words, from elation to despair, run-ins with the law and visitations from angels, her autistic, ADHD, bi-polar mind has taken her everywhere and the poetry that she wrote at peak distress brings the story to life.In this heartwarming, confident performance. (Everything theatre 2023), Poppy questions whether the services always help.
