Some Demon review – secrets and cynicism in an adult

Arcola theatre, London
Set in a chronically understaffed treatment centre, Laura Waldren’s searing play homes in on the hellish cycles and contradictions caused by the condition

For anyone who has ever lived with an eating disorder, Laura Waldren’s Papatango prize-winning play feels like a blow to the head. It is set in an adult eating disorder unit – a land segregated from the rest of life, where patients fight against their internal voices in an effort to get better. Their key nurses treat them like infants, telling them what to eat, when they can use the phone, and to avoid using “negative” words. But when you’re under the sway of a secret demon, can any of that really help at all?

Eighteen-year-old Sam (Hannah Saxby) arrives at the unit fresh from a stint at a similar children’s facility. She is desperate to get well enough to go to university and start anew. Zoe (Sirine Saba) is in her 40s, a cynical revolving-door patient who has so far been unable to escape the grasp of her illness. Group sessions, meal plans and physical check-ups form the basis of the broken, chronically understaffed system that they’re pushed through. Honesty is required for the process to work, they’re told repeatedly, but the lies about relapses and secret bouts of exercise fall out of the women with ease.