Review: Sharp Body Dysmorphia Comedy in ‘Defence Mechanism’

Hannah Platt has body dysmorphia and doesn’t like being looked at – but here she is on a stage, all lights on her. She’s northern, so doesn’t like showing vulnerability – but here she is opening up publicly about her mental health. The contradictions pile up in Defence Mechanism. They also create space for this fringe rookie to ply her choicest comedy – as when she puts her audience on the spot, asking us to assess her looks. If that’s not the sound of a pin dropping, it may just be that Platt’s humour here is sharp enough to draw blood.

That’s certainly the case in the opening stages, which address our host’s issues with her body and self-esteem – a subject around which she might profitably have constructed the whole show. She shares her strategies for unearthing what friends really think of her, and for translating compliments, oh so easily, into insults. She describes how laughter makes her paranoid, then we encounter her out in public, riding alongside scallies on a city tram and trying, on her therapist’s instructions, to coax her self-loathing towards happier perspectives.

The pas de deux between Platt and the voice in her head (now she’s still living it; now she’s got perspective on it) feels fresh. There is a great, knotty joke about the overlap between being treated for body dysmorphia and simply being reassured about your looks. A later joke tries something similar, when Platt riffs on a therapist who agrees with her low opinion of herself. That’s droll enough, but the show becomes a little diffuse in its second half, as our host brings depression, queerness, and nonspecific weirdness into a less focused mix. There are bum notes too, such as her cynicism about successful comics talking about mental health, and the uncertain ending about her dad’s drawings.

But, unsentimentally rendered in Platt’s blunt, Merseyside-via-Manchester accent, the show is always compelling (give or take the overstretched last 10 minutes), and there is a heart-stopping moment when Platt’s mum takes her school bullies’ side. Small wonder the 25-year-old doubts her worth – but audiences won’t.

• At Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh, until 25 August

• In the UK, Beat can be contacted on 0808-801-0677. In the US, help is available at nationaleatingdisorders.org or by calling ANAD’s eating disorders hotline at 800-375-7767. In Australia, the Butterfly Foundation is at 1800 33 4673. Other international helplines can be found at Eating Disorder Hope