REVIEW: THAT’S NOT MY NAME by Sammy Trotman at The Hen and Chickens Theatre & on tour

‘Unsettling, in the best possible way’ ★★★★

In ‘That’s Not My Name’, Sammy Trotman goads the audience into applause, then scolds us for doing so. She draws attention throughout to the irony of being entertained by someone telling us about their borderline personality disorders, their abuse, and their difficulty in processing it. She reminds us that she is hoping to profit from this experience. It is peculiar, then, to review this show, to offer an opinion on it, when Trotman is so hyper aware of opinions, how they have the potential to shape, damage, and label us. 
 

Trotman intends to make us feel uncomfortable throughout. She succeeds in this, though more through her performance than her script (if there is a script…is it scripted? Is it real? We’re not sure). This is almost a one person show, with some interaction with three of the ‘tech crew’ who are there to assist her performance, which flits between spoken word, song and dance, stand-up comedy, audience interaction, and moments where she withdraws into a disturbing version of her childhood self. Throughout these different guises, she explores her trauma, her therapy, her privilege as a relatively affluent white person, and whether it is she or her therapist who should be considered ‘mad.’
 

I found her performance genuinely unsettling, but in the best possible way. The rhythm and intensity of the spoken word was juxtaposed with her loud shouts of rage. The red and green lighting illuminated opposite sides of her face showing the conflict between the supposed expertise of the therapist, versus her own experience; she is the only expert on how she feels. 

There is a lot of dark, dry humour in there too: identifying a couple in the audience who had been together for twenty years sounded like Trotman was proposing a menage a trois - but was actually asking for a new set of parents. Her tech crew accidentally sabotage her performance, forgetting props or messing up sound and light cues. The lot of them perform a song wearing ‘Pink Freud: the dark side of your mum’ t-shirts, and spectacularly fail at the dance moves. We could never pin down the change of mood, or predict the next action, and the play was all the more exciting for it. 

The humour is also replicated in the programme, where the show receives a glowing review from an ex-psychiatrist.

Despite the breathless performance, some elements felt like they could be tightened up. It felt like an exercise in getting her past off her chest, and the suggestion that it’s the therapist who is mad is one we’ve heard before. The audience interaction felt a little stilted – they might have been Trotman’s friends and seemed a little too cocksure. They also seemed overly startled by what was the play’s exciting physicality - stamping on a bag of crisps, a ‘techie’ falling into a table worked well but almost felt like there were plants there to laugh, Trotman stomping off stage through one door and back on through another. A sharper focus on what could change could work here - though the ferocity of the show suggests that there is little that can be done but air it. Which makes total sense given the revelations towards the end.

Trotman is a wonderful performer and savvy writer. I look forward to seeing how she deals with topics which are a little less close to home.

Photography: Alexis Steele 

THAT'S NOT MY NAME written and performed by Sammy Trotman

Hen and Chickens, 8^th – 10^th March

Box Office https://www.unrestrictedview.co.uk/thats-not-my-name/

SPRINT Festival – The Camden People’s Theatre, 23rd March, 7pm

Box Office https://cptheatre.co.uk/whatson/Thats-Not-My-Name

The Golden Goose, 16th-21st May, 8pm

Box Office opens soon

Brighton Fringe – Squeak @ The Rotunda, 2nd & 3rd May 7.45pm, 9th & 10th June 7.45pm

Box Office https://www.brightonfringe.org/events/thats-not-my-name/

Reviewed by Jonny Kemp

https://www.jonnykempart.co.uk/