The Anxiety Box, designed and made by Tom Frederic
Last night was the first edition of Come With Me If You Want To Live, the quarterly cabaret show I’m putting on for Chelsea Theatre. I was really chuffed at how it all went: there was an incredible pop-up exhibition of David Hoyle’s paintings, with guided tour; cheeky vegetable sculptures by Rachel Porter; typically brilliant lip-synchery from Dickie Beau in a sailor suit; lost-generation poignancy and peignoir madness from Eve Ferret; and dancy veg-munching from Figs in Wigs. Everyone was ace. And it was sold out, which is grand.
The night also saw the debut of the Anxiety Box, which I mentioned the other day in this post about cabaret as a machine for fighting anxiety. Audience members were invited to write down things that make them anxious and post them into the box. Half the crowd took up the invitation, which is brilliant in my book, and at the end of the night, David effortlessly dispensed a few life lessons in response to a selection of entries.
Below you can see what was on people’s minds – there’s a massive array of subjects, from the global to the utterly individual. Work was a big theme, along with media, sex, self-esteem, stuff related to watching the show itself and some really, erm, unusual ones.
To everyone who shared with the group: a huge thank you and I hope it’s a bit of a boost recognising we’ve all got plenty of issues we grapple with. And to the person who plucked up the courage to admit to a phobia of peas only to be (coincidentally!) subjected to a 15-minute live pea-eating tournament: sorry.
PS this post makes me anxious that people will think less of me because I have an obviously dirty shag pile.
