“There are a few things you need to know straight away,” says Jess Thom. She then involuntarily says the word “biscuit”, and thumps her chest with a gloved hand.
“Firstly, you’re going to hear the words ‘biscuit’ and ‘hedgehog’ a lot in the next hour – biscuit. CATS!” she continues, thumping her chest again. “Secondly, if I say something funny – biscuit – you’re absolutely allowed to laugh – biscuit. In fact it would be a bit odd if you didn’t. Biscuit!”
It’s a relief to be given permission to laugh, because it would have been nearly impossible not to. This 90-minute show is an absolute delight: moving, warm, generous and sparkling with the absurdly hilarious interjections of a woman who has both Tourette syndrome and an extremely Pythonesque sense of humour.
“A duck farting on an ashtray,” is one such interjection. “Fourteen per cent of your mum’s best ideas, but inside David Blaine,” is another. Or, my personal favourite: “If you’ve got a geranium at home, put in a soup and pretend it never lived.”
Some of these tics were written into the script in the aftermath of their utterance, and others seem spontaneous, surprising Thom as much as they do us. Backstage in Biscuit Land is not just about the experience of living with Tourette’s, but the beauty and joy that can come from it.
Thom has had Tourette syndrome since she began making an involuntary squeaking sound as a child, but it was undiagnosed until her mid-20s. Tourette’s, she tells us, is one of the most misunderstood disorders in the world, despite its commonality: “It is estimated to effect 300,000 people in the UK alone – and eight glove puppets!” she says, bursting into laughter at the unexpected disclaimer.
She’s joined on stage with co-host and co-writer Jess Mabel Jones, whose tic-designated name is Chopin and who is armed with an emergency script. Thom cheerfully explains that she has a few seizure-like ticcing fits each day, and one could happen on stage at any moment.
Chopin doesn’t have Tourette’s, but comes close to matching Thom for spontaneous turn of phrase – and their enjoyment of each other’s company is deeply infectious.
Backstage in Biscuit Land premiered to acclaim in 2014 in Edinburgh; like Thom’s other projects it aims to celebrate Tourette syndrome as a harbinger of creativity, encourage inclusivity, and dispel some longstanding myths. Tourette’s, we are told, exists on a spectrum. It is not a symptom of anxiety or low self-esteem – or of being possessed by a demon – and it does not always express itself through profanity.
“In fact, only 15% of people with Tourette’s have obscene tics,” Thom says, before a tic – “FUCK ’EM!” – and a perfectly timed pause: “I am one of them.”
Yes, she swears, but Thom’s most frequent vocal tic is decidedly more British: she has estimated she utters the word “biscuit” up to 16,000 times a day, so automatically it feels to her like blinking. We are asked to turn to the person beside us for a staring contest. That uncontrollable blinking urge – the one that brings tears to your eyes, and brings so much relief when sated – is roughly comparable, she says.
She has other vocal tics, including “hedgehog”, “cats”, “I’m a baby!” and “ponycunt”, as well as randomly generated phrases and songs that are delightful in their absurdity and are sprinkled through her script (“Margaret Thatcher is a faaaaart!” she sings – and it’s tempting to join in).
Some of these tics have become props, too: “We didn’t know what our set should be,” Chopin explains, “so Jess tic’d a long list of stuff and we just brought what she said that day.”
And so we have on stage before us: four ducks dressed as pterodactyls; a dinosaur balloon; an enormous loaf of bread named Steve; an anvil with the word “dinner” on it; a life-size statue of Mother Teresa; and “the smell of an ice cream parlour and bakery from a different age”.
The last one is sprayed on the front row. It smells a lot worse than it sounds.
Thom’s vocal tics are accompanied by physical ones: uncontrolled movements of her limbs that led her to her wheelchair, and the regular thumping of either hand on her chest. (She wears padded gloves now, to stop her knuckles from cracking and bruising.)
Making uncontrolled sounds and jerky movements means going to the theatre is a complicated endeavor, and being ejected from an audience midway through a show five years ago remains one of the most “humiliating” experiences of her life. Backstage in Biscuit Land is a “relaxed performance”: a term that welcomes audience members who, like Thom, might not be able to sit still and quietly for the duration.
Joined on stage by a sign language interpreter, the pair careen through the 90-minute show with increasing surrealism, celebrating a syndrome that for all its difficulties – communicated through tender monologues that make the laughter even louder – can also be filled with light.
One of Thom’s friends and carers once described her as “a crazy language-generating machine”. Not doing anything creative with her tics would, he said, be wasteful. Her tics called this man “leftwing idiot”. It’s a good thing that she listened to him.
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