FESTIVAL THEATRE | Mental
Kim Noble has talked about his own suicidal impulses on stage before – this year, he turns his attention to the mental health of the activist known as ‘the vacuum cleaner’. Kaite Welsh caught up with him
MIND GAMES
A n audience member tried to have him institutionalised, and he once i lmed his own arrest for stalking, but controversial comedian and performance artist Kim Noble is back in Edinburgh with not one but two shows. Five years after he discussed his own suicidal impulses in Kim Noble Must Die, he has turned his attention to someone else’s mental health and is directing Mental, an autobiographical account of the performance artist, activist, in-patient and ‘domestic extremist’ known only as ‘the vacuum cleaner’.
Mental takes place over 13 years, exploring the relationship between the vacuum cleaner’s mental illness and his interactions with the police. It weaves together personal rel ections, psychiatric records, police intelligence i les and social services reports to create an unsettling look at the results of the stigma and social isolation around mental health. It also takes place under a giant duvet, for a select audience of 15.
toll of creating such an emotionally weighted piece, the vacuum cleaner approached mutual friends to see if Noble was well enough to collaborate. ‘I always thought his work was really interesting, and obviously there was a kind of crossover with my last show,’ Noble explains. Since they both fuse multimedia with live performance, he felt it was a good i t – a rare expression of coni dence from an artist who is beyond self- deprecating and keeps insisting he has no talent. Still, he’s quick to downplay his involvement. ‘The word “direct” is a little bit strange,’ he muses. ‘I was brought in for a particular purpose.’ His role on Mental allowed him to have a distance from the subject that he isn’t used to, saying he frequently loses sight ‘of what’s real and what’s on stage’ in his own shows. ‘I wasn’t seeing the painful side that he’s going through. I’m trying to see it from an audience perspective, which I’m not sure I’m very good at doing for my own work.’
Noble has come to the production relatively recently but has helped the vacuum cleaner shape it, as well as preparing him for taking an intensely personal show to the hotbed of emotion that is personal show to the hotbed of emotion that is the Fringe. Mindful of the the Fringe. Mindful of the 78 THE LIST FESTIVAL 31 Jul–7 Aug 2014
‘I tried to move on, but I just blatantly haven’t’
He is also performing his own show, You’re Not Alone, which features, among other things, video footage of B&Q and the sound of his neighbours hav neighbours having sex, which he recorded through the wa through the wall without their knowledge. It is a follow-up is a follow-up of sorts to his 2009 production, ‘but I didn’t wa ‘but I didn’t want it to be,’ he insists, explaining that he’d hoped that he’d hoped the catharsis from his i rst show w would have been complete. ‘I tried to move on, but I just blatantly haven’t.’ Noble admits that working on a production about someone else’s mental h health is easier than working o on something autobiographical. ‘ ‘That sounds horrible, doesn’t it? B But you have a sort of objectivity w when it’s not about you.’
H He plans on asking for additional su support to manage his mental hea health during what he describes as as ‘the madness of the Edinburgh mo month’ – and when he uses that wor word, you know he really means it. G it. Given his crippling stage fright and and agoraphobia – he’s praying for a zomb zombie apocalypse in Edinburgh this summ summer – it seems that in directing, Nobl Noble has i nally found the perfect vehic vehicle for the pain and innovation that c that characterise his work. Menta Mental, Pleasance Pop-Up: The Bedro Bedroom, 556 6550, 7–24 Aug (not 11 (not 11–13, 18–20), 6.30pm, £10 (£8). K (£8). Kim Noble: You’re Not Alone, Travers Traverse, 228 1401, 20–24 Aug, 11.15p 11.15pm, £19 (£14). Preview 19 Aug, £1 Aug, £13 (£7).