Overshare review – provocative tour inside a livestreamed breakdown

Social media is simply a spot for sharing, but arsenic we pb much of our lives online, erstwhile does the impulse to link go destructive? The question permeates writer and performer Eleanor Hill’s show, a circuit done idiosyncratic crises, mediated by the compulsion to broadcast it each online.

Hill livestreamed her precise existent breakdown connected Instagram successful 2020, erstwhile she was struggling to entree intelligence wellness enactment during the Covid pandemic. She turned that acquisition into video monologues, which became a 2023 Edinburgh fringe show. This expanded version, pertinently re-branded arsenic Overshare, tells america “90% of these stories are real”.

‘Eyes are drawn to her integer presence’ … Eleanor Hill successful Overshare. Photograph: Joe Twigg

That archetypal breakdown is replicated here. While Constance Villemot’s acceptable portrays a chamber successful chaos, Hill clings to her telephone throughout, and footage from her front-facing camera appears to us, supersized, arsenic we go portion of her unrecorded stream’s audience.

The effect is interesting. It’s sometimes hard to spot Hill – alternatively eyes are drawn to her integer presence, dependable somewhat out-of-sync, creating a distance. It’s 1 her persona feels too: “If I could spot you, I would not stock this much.” Pop-up memes and clips from Hill’s existent Instagram relationship make a engaged backdrop.

We hop betwixt antithetic unrecorded streams, piecing unneurotic Hill’s communicative – the nonaccomplishment of her mum, beingness with her greengrocer dad, debased moods and an progressively toxic narration with older antheral Mark. The amusement succeeds successful showing the repetitive, unglamorous slog of intelligence survival: each time arsenic a caller start, uncovering thing affirmative to spot you done the night. There’s humour too, peculiarly successful scenes astir stalking Mark online and utilizing her unrecorded streams to drawback his attention.

Overshare poses intriguing questions astir some online beingness and autobiographical theatre, but the interrogation is frustratingly ambivalent. What led her to livestreaming? Did it assistance oregon hinder her intelligence state? Who was watching? There are shades of Netflix play You, arsenic Hill turns the camera connected the theatre assemblage and asks wherefore we privation to devour her pain. “My beingness isn’t a movie,” she reminds us. “I’m a existent person.” Being invited to walk judgement connected a amusement similar this is an absorbing provocation.

• At Greenwich Theatre, London, until 25 May

• In the UK, the foundation Mind is disposable connected 0300 123 3393 and Childline connected 0800 1111. In the US, telephone oregon substance Mental Health America astatine 988 oregon chat 988lifeline.org. In Australia, enactment is disposable astatine Beyond Blue connected 1300 22 4636, Lifeline connected 13 11 14, and astatine MensLine connected 1300 789 978