PLAY REVIEW: Tell Me Where it Hurts ★ ★ ★★

There is something quietly radical about a play asking its audience simply to listen. In Tell Me Where It Hurts, Teepee Productions turns that seemingly modest request into an affecting, often funny examination of Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder (PMDD), female pain and the exhausting business of not being believed.

Written by Tayla Kenyon and directed by Emma Fisher, the 80-minute comedy-drama centres on Chrissy (Stephanie Booth), a drama teacher attempting to keep her professional and personal life together while living with the debilitating effects of PMDD. Alongside her is Annie (Kenyon), a talented but troubled student auditioning for drama school, while James Schofield deftly inhabits a succession of supporting roles.

The production’s greatest strength is its humanity. Chrissy is not reduced to a diagnosis, nor is PMDD treated as a convenient dramatic device. Instead, Kenyon explores what happens when a person repeatedly explains that something is wrong, only to find that the people around her hear the words without really listening. It is a theme that extends beyond medicine into relationships, education and family life.

Schofield’s quick-change performances provide much of the comedy, while Booth gives Chrissy a bruised, increasingly desperate vulnerability. Kenyon’s Annie provides an energetic counterpoint, her own difficulties gradually revealing themselves beneath the surface.

There are moments when the message threatens to become more explicit than the drama requires, but the sincerity of the performances carries it through. Teepee’s small-scale staging makes clever use of limited space, allowing the three-strong company to create an entire social world around Chrissy.

Funny, painful and unapologetically empathetic, Tell Me Where It Hurts makes a persuasive case for the simplest form of care: believing someone when they tell you they are hurting.