Backstage In Biscuit Land (Jess Thom)

I've been feeling pretty bleak this week, what with the nauseating misogyny of "revolting slugs" from America, horrifying inhumanity in Syria and the endless uncertainty over civil equality here at home. All in all, I've been ready to crawl under the doona and not come out till the world gets its shit together and I'm quite certain I'm not the only person who's felt this way of late. But hiding away would be a mistake, I realised walking out from an hour of truly cleansing, life-enriching theatre courtesy of British performers Jess Thom and Jess Mabel Jones (aka Chopin). Their show, Backstage in Biscuit Land, is a powerful ode to the glorious, inspiring resilience of people in an age where integration and tolerance are increasingly scarce.

This freewheeling, relentlessly delighting production is a surreal and poetic quasi-biopic of Thom's experiences as a Tourette's syndrome "sufferer". I offer those pointed quotation marks as her story is both an education into the frustrating prejudices people with this misunderstood neurological condition are subjected to and a case study of the wonderfully oddball creativity Tourette's unlocks.

Each person's Tourette's is unique and unpredictable. Thom, for example, says the words "biscuit" and "hedgehog" many thousands of times a day, but she also blurts out, and even sings, entire sentences that, while utterly nonsensical, capture a whimsical kookiness that rivals Monty Python in its peculiar originality. On stage in lieu of a set, there is a collection of inexplicable objects dredged-up from Thom's subconscious by her condition, including an anvil with "dinner" written on it and four ducks dressed as velociraptors. One of the first things Thom tells the audience is that it is ok to laugh. She is aware that what she says, albeit beyond her control, is an extension of her own bright and breezy personality, and in giving us permission to be in on the joke with her, she immediately builds a disarming rapport.

Thom and her assistant Chopin (a nicknamed ascribed by Thom' ticks) declare the show a "relaxed performance", which is putting it mildly. Mashed strawberries are flung about the theatre, the incredibly accommodating sign language interpreter is instructed to sign various naughty phrases because, as Thom points out, "she's contracted to do anything I say," and constant ad-libs, hilarious mime-play and corpsing repeatedly throw the show miles off-piste, in the best possible way. It may be chaotic, but this wild dynamic also makes each performance a snowflake: beautiful, complex and entirely unique.

Indeed, much of this show's captivating charm is rooted in the weird and wonderful unscripted exclamations Thom uncontrollably releases, but this isn't to say this syndrome (and by extension, this performance) is all fun and games. At the show I attended, Thom cheerfully warned the audience that a "fit" was likely imminent and that this would be the "extra wriggly" edition of the production. In addition to her vocal ticks, Thom also repeatedly beats her chest or suddenly convulses. Her physical jerks have made walking unsafe, so she now uses a wheelchair. Her Tourette's is so severe that it even affects her in her sleep and so she requires round the clock support in order to avoid injury. Thom also shares some profoundly moving accounts of being discriminated against and segregated because of her condition, providing a deeply affecting counterpoint to the bubbly silliness. Far from weighing the show down, these moments of reflection act to further illuminate how extraordinary Thom is as a performer and a person. The show concludes with a singalong about bestiality. It's raucous, unapologetically bawdy and above all, utterly joyous. These may be dark times, but a trip to Biscuit Land is the perfect tonic to remind us that it's not all bad.

Backstage In Biscuit Land is at Malthouse Theatre to Oct 16, part of the Melbourne Festival.