Jess Thom says 'biscuit' 16,000 times a day as a result of Tourette's, but she's turned her tics into something that can be celebrated and embraced.
Jess says that most of what people have heard about Tourette's is based on myths and stereotypes. At her show 'Backstage In Biscuit Land' in the Queensland Performing Arts Centre's Cremorne Theatre, she attempts, and succeeds, to prove this.
Joined on stage by her assistant Chopin (Jess Mabel Jones), Jess takes the audience through her life, stopping every now and again to show and tell us things that she has experienced, discovered and dealt with along the way.
Before the show gets into things, Jess makes sure to point out that it's more than okay to laugh at her tics if they are funny (“In fact, it would be a bit odd if you don't”). On stage, the audience sees a bunch of completely random and disjointed objects. Chopin explains that they are all things Jess has ticced, when they were in the planning stages for the show.
There's an anvil with the word 'DINNER' on it, toy ducks dressed up in dinosaur costumes, a cardboard cut-out of an oak tree and more. It's a chaotic scene of weird and wonderful things, but it also represents the strangely vibrant and creative ideas that can emerge from Tourette's.
Jess tells a story about how she once went to see a show at a theatre, only to be told to sit in the sound booth because she was distracting the audience with her noises. 'Backstage In Biscuit Land' is, for the most part, an upbeat and immersive show, but it's balanced with a few real-life experiences that bring everything back down to earth for a moment.
The audience is involved, too. We are told that having Tourette's feels a bit like blinking. We have to do it, and it happens every day although we hardly notice it. Jess encourages us to have a staring contest with the person next to us, as an example. It's fun, and at the same time informative. A reflection on the show as a whole.
What's Biscuit Land without biscuits? Tins of crunchy favourites are passed around the entire audience, because it's hard to hear the word 'biscuit' hundreds of times without getting a little hungry.
Although being born as anything other than 'normal' can understandably negatively impact some, it's inspiring to witness a woman who has taken something she can't control, and turned it into a heartwarming, hilarious performance.
★★★★★
