The Worst of Scottee, Roundhouse

Outrageous performance artist Scottee is showing a more vulnerable (and deeply moving) side in his latest show, now at the Roundhouse fresh from an award-winning run on the Edinburgh Fringe.

The concept of Scottee’s show is there in the name: it’s a confession of sorts, in which this regular fixture of the London queer performance art scene owns up to his worst sins and deepest shames, gradually stripping away his usual thick coat of protective make-up. In the process of making the show, Scottee worked with a psychotherapist and a filmmaker, who have helped him plunder his own past and lay it out on stage, warts and all.

In place of the priest’s confession box, Scottee spends the show inside a digital confession booth on stage, sharing his sins with a camera that immediately screens them to the audience. The result is exposing, heartfelt and devastating, doing away with the artifice that usually characterises theatre and that has been particularly central to Scottee’s previous loud and colourful constructions.

This surprising departure for Scottee has been directed by theatre-maker Chris Goode, whose latest work to appear in London was Monkey Bars ; a charming piece that put the words of children into the mouths of adult actors. We expect that he will bring a characteristically gentle and thought-provoking approach to The Worst of Scottee, helping to craft this personal series of confessions into a deeply affecting piece of theatre.

Scottee’s heartfelt approach has already won a whole host of admirers in Edinburgh, where he gathered several rave reviews and scooped a Total Theatre Award for Innovation, Experimentation and Playing with Form. For honest emotion, reflection and a small dose of heartbreak, we think you can’t do much better.