ADHD WTF is ADHD? Playground Theatre.

Gail Louw’s involving and intimate single-hander bioplay, ADHD WTF is ADHD? recounts her long-time friend Louise Comb’s experiences of a lifetime living with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Comb is finally formally diagnosed at 63. Almost instantly, she can connect the dots and access the support she needs. A lifetime with “no logic and no pattern” in which “there’s no such thing as background noise, just noise” becomes explicable. Past experiences, including intense paranoia, cripplingly obsessive self-criticism, an inability to remember or focus, and unpredictable emotional outbursts, suddenly make sense.

Comb’s ongoing pain and subsequent sense of liberation are palpably expressed in a finely observed performance by Emma Wilkinson Wright. Sensitively directed by Anthony Shrubsall, the piece is raw, searingly honest and sometimes not a comfortable watch, but it is immensely rewarding.

Louw, a much-admired and prestigiously productive writer, intercuts Comb’s prose depiction of events in her life with verse segments and stand-up comedy delivered by the protagonist’s alter-ego “Lulu”. It is a clever construction that brings light and shade to a story of “a moth attracted to a variety of lights” that might otherwise be relentlessly dark.

“Lulu’s” comedy trademark involves the deadpan deconstruction of the lyrics of well-known songs to reveal their inherent absurdities. The humour is engaging and funny in its own right, demonstrates her endurance, and also showcases what Comb describes as her ADHD superpower: the ability to find connections, mix metaphors, and play with rhythm and logic in ways that other people cannot.

Comb grew up with a dementing mother, what she describes as a hyper-critical father who never fails to point out her faults, and brothers who veer between disinterest and emotional abuse. Perhaps they would tell a different story – living with a child with ADHD can be hard on everyone – but this is Comb’s take on events, and Louw is determined to do it justice.

Comb is bullied at school, and there are hints of self-harm, attempts at suicide, and at least one episode of psychosis. Yet she is the only one in her family who manages to attend university.  She meets her husband, Brian, who learns never to ask her, “What’s the matter?” She tells friends she is glad never to have been a mother, only for them to remind her what her ADHD has caused her to quite simply forget: she had IVF, then an immensely painful miscarriage. Anyone who doubts the existence of ADHD, or wants to learn about its lived experience, should see this fine play.

Writer:  Gail Louw with Louise Comb

Director:   Anthony Shrubsall