Perhaps because the word hysterical is usually followed by laughter, probably also from the press image and the blurb ~ when surrealist painter Salvador Dali unexpectedly turns up, along with a young woman who finds it impossible to keep her clothes on, all hell breaks loose ~ I thought Hysteria at Bath Theatre Royal would be a farce. There were farcical moments, and belly-laughs too, but at the heart of the story is a serious issue: Sigmund Freud's change of heart after his research was reviled, and the consequences for the clients he may have betrayed and for the future of psychiatry.
Indira Varma is brilliant as the disrobing young woman, appearing in the analyst's life - or maybe his dream - in chameleon roles as student, subject, and super-ego-conscience to reproach him for re-condemning women he'd initially liberated by his 'talking cure', by labling them fantasists who longed for, and imagined, their abuse.
It's a fascinating play and a tour de force for the three men too - Antony Sher, David Horovitch, and especially Will Keen's Dali, blazing like a giraffe in sock-suspenders through the absurd surreality of Freud's mind-slip and speaking ego-eccentrically of himself in third person as "Dally". Set & lighting were impressive both as Freud's den and darkly-dreaming mind, and Terry Johnson directed superbly this 20-years on revival of his masterly script.

Ten hours after emerging from the theatre and by the miracle of modern Easyjet from Bristol I'm in Andalusia, soon to be dipping my toes in the cerulean pool of Cortijo Romero. Only day 2 of my week 'Being Here' with Amanda Brown, and already I'm blissed out by the place, the people, and the peace... A more coherent report may follow. Or just more pictures...
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