Troubled at HOME

It’s 1993, and Alice is desperate to go to Funderland with her friends. Her mum says no – because Belfast is burning. ‘How about Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves and Chinese chicken balls instead?’.

This surreal exchange sets the tone for Troubled, Suzy Crothers’ semi-autobiographical solo show coming to HOME this May. Painting a picture of how political violence is absorbed on a human level, it moves between 1993 and 2023, following Alice from childhood to adulthood, moving to Lisbon, navigating neurodiversity, and falling for Tim. But as that relationship develops, so does the core question: Can Alice escape the legacy of her childhood, of is this the moment everything unravels?

The play’s structure shows us the repercussions of a childhood shaped by the Troubles – what it does to Alice’s relationships, her inner life, her sense of safety. This comes across in the form, too. Blending storytelling, projection and audience interaction, Crothers shifts between voices, memories and states of mind, sketching out the tangled inner world that Alice has inherited from her past. It also allows Crothers to move away from the stiff, dutiful mode political theatre can sometimes slip into, instead balancing the more serious aspects of the piece with moments of laughter and warmth.

To that end, literal tea and biscuits are part of the deal. “I wanted the audience to feel cared for and looked after”, says Crothers, whose show, set against the backdrop of its weighty themes, pushes forward the importance of care, humour and community.

Reviews from its Edinburgh Fringe run – where it was a finalist for the Mental Health Foundation Fringe Award – point to something pacy, funny and emotionally volatile, capable of switching quickly from warmth to chaos and back again. That messiness seems to be the point. A childhood shaped by conflict can’t be neatly ‘resolved’, but, as Crothers puts it, the past needs to be acknowledged in order to move forwards.