Cold/Warm

Florence Read’s critique of mental health may well serve as a type of dramatic counterpoint to the abundance of direct, confessional shows about this subject at the Fringe. Her one-person play provides sporadically enlightening reflections on the way in which society creates outcasts of the mentally ill, but this is sadly lost in an often clumsy script and strained central performance.

Cold/Warm’s reclusive protagonist (played by Ieuan Perkins) gazes down from his shabby tower block flat to a city that has rejected him. He ponders the disconnection between his own existence and those of commuters, barking about failed relationships and odd neighbours, and spending hours writing disgruntled letters to the council. His rare contact with the outside world is via cold callers—from proselytisers to estate agents—as he also contemplates the treatment of his recently hospitalised mother.

The problem is that none of these inner torments link up. As one grievance ends, the next begins, and a stronger sense of how this character slowly loses control would ensure that the final emotional payoff rewards audiences. Perkins himself gives an aptly neurotic, antsy performance as a man descending into despair. He constantly repeats himself, a blatant character quirk that comes across as irritating after a while.

Cold/Warm is struggling to articulate a message on the intersection of broken social relationships and depression. Read provides plenty of detail about the character’s life but fails to tie its importance to the reason for his suffering, to the extent that we’re frustratingly left in the dark.