Words: Elodie Marriott 
Image: Ella Carmen Dale

4 stars 

This is the story of five strangers finding brief connection in an unlikely place. No, the forced proximity is not caused by a high school detention, but a clinical drugs trial. 

Mitch is anti-work, Yaz is unemployed and only got the job due to nepotism, Bathsheba hopes the pill she’s swallowing is brain-altering, and Duggan is lonely. Though the play touches on the ethics of this medical practice, Brainsluts is more of a treatise on empathy, concerned with the dynamics between people who seemingly have nothing in common. Written by Dan Bishop, the variety of reasons for risking their health to partake in the potentially dangerous experiment allow for sharp and efficient dialogue. 

The characters are all intriguing and distinctive without bleeding into caricature. Dim-witted Duggan’s one liners, “Are we just going to sit on our phones and beads all day,” had the crowd in stitches and grateful there was a doctor nearby (even if she was just a theatrical one). But the audiences’ bellyaches only intensified in her presence due to her eccentric line delivery and kooky bedside manner: “Speeding round the corner with some formula ones!” 

Brainsluts diagnosis? An affecting and entertaining play, caused by a talented cast and a playwright to watch. 

Brainsluts
10 Dome, Pleasance Dome 
14:45 
17 – 25 Aug