mentalMental takes place in a bed in a residential building just outside the city centre. The walk back takes about 20 minutes.

In the shadow of Arthur’s seat we cross a road by some traffic lights. As we do so a van pulls up next to us, a police van. Further along the road we pass a young family, sitting on a grassy bank by a field a few hundred meters away from the Scottish parliament building. A member of our group is walking at the front and holding a small sign with the word ‘Mental’ written on it. This isn’t a provocative gesture. Mental, of course, is the name of the show and the sign is a means of ensuring members of the audience know where to meet and who to follow to get back to the Pleasance. As we walk past the grassy mound, a man can be heard saying “are you lot fucking mental?”

In normal circumstances I wouldn’t think much of either, but having sat on the floor with a cup of tea and cake and heard what James had to say – both about the police and his mental health condition – it was impossible not to think of both in an entirely differently light.

Mental is an autobiographical performance about James’s adult life. James is an artist and activist. James is he real name but he makes art under the name of the Vacuum Cleaner – but that’s a long story for another time.

We find James sitting on the floor in a darkened room covered by a white duvet cover. We hear his breathing through a microphone. After a while he emerges and says hello. He has a record player, some vinyl records and an overhead projector, but he uses those simple resources to tell a remarkable story. Starting in 1999, James uses his psychiatric records, police intelligence files and injunctions collected through the Data Protection Act to trace the contours of his life adult life. Spanning 14 years, he presents his heart-rending experience of acute mental illness, suicide and surviving the mental health care system.

Far be it from me to reveal the details, but what emerges is a story about how important art can be as a vessel of survival for those cast adrift from society. It is not an easy watch, but what he says is so important and so fundamentally at odds with popular preconceptions about mental illness that it is a piece which demands viewing.

Mental is at the Pleasance Pop-Up: The Bedroom (Venue 420) until 24th August. For more information visit the Fringe website.