Fake It 'Til You Make It

Bryony Kimmings, Tim Grayburn

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781783199518
• eBook ISBN: 9781783199525
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: British Drama
• Index: Literature

Six months into their relationship, Bryony found out that Tim suffered from severe clinical depression. This was a secret Tim had kept for a very long time. Fake it 'til you Make it is Edinburgh Fringe First-winner Bryony Kimmings' new work about clinical depression and men, made in collaboration with her partner Tim, who works in advertising. A wickedly warming, brutally honest and powerfully heartbreaking show about the wonders of the human brain, being in love and what it takes to be a "real man". The book contains articles by Andy Field (Forest Fringe), The Vacuum Cleaner (activist and performer) and Georgie Harman (CEO of Beyond Blue), covering performance, art and mental health.

Act One

The stage is empty as the audience arrives. There is one open white back light on the stage, nothing flashy. The music is kind of industrial, repetitive and has a sense of impending doom. There are ropes in the rig strung across the rig in a diamond shape and coming down to fixed spots on the sides. The rope is orange. Just caught in the light.

The house lights and music fade.

BRYONY and TIM enter the auditorium. They have baskets on their heads and maraccas in their hands. They are in their underpants, very unflattering, spanx, y-fronts, maternity bra, crap white socks, BRYONY all in nude, TIM in white.

Tacky rhumba muzak begins to play and the duo sing a song doing a stupid and ugly dance routine on the spot which includes butt shaking and kicks.

1 – THE DOCTORS’ SONG

B:	70% of patients sitting in the doctors’ waiting room queue
	Are there with mental health complaints
	Now doesn’t that just slightly shift the view
T:	(Whispered.) That’s seventy percent of you!
B:	Don’t make me go to the doctor
T:	A broken arm ain’t like a broken brain
B:	Don’t make me go to the doctor
T:	He’ll make me fill in that form again
B:	Don’t make me go the doctor
T:	A broken arm ain’t like a broken brain
B:	Don’t make me go to the doctor
T:	Oh no not that form again
B:	It can be up to 8% of us (that’s 8% of us.) at any one time.
	It will be 1 in 4 of us. That’s a quarter love, some point in our busy lives.
T:	(Whispered.) A mental health surprise.
B:	Don’t make me go to the doctor
T:	A broken arm ain’t like a broken brain
B:	Don’t make me go to the doctor
T:	He’ll make me fill in that form again
	Dance break.
B:	Don’t make me go the doctor
T:	A broken arm ain’t like a broken brain
B:	Don’t make me go to the doctor
T:	Oh no not that form again!
	They bow, the lights fade.
	In the blackout BRYONY walks to her microphone SR. TIM heads backstage to set himself for the movies scene with his binoculars and bag.

2 – PROLOGUE

She nods a hello to everyone. Very friendly and chatty delivery.

B:	Hello.
	I’m Bryony Kimmings. I’m a loud mouth…slightly heavily pregnant now, feminist performance artist from London. If you aren’t familiar with my art work you can usually find me sniffing around some kind of social stigma or trying to tear down a terrible taboo. And I often work with people who don’t usually grace the stage.
	So, that was Tim Grayburn. He works in advertising. He is an account director at a big media agency back in London so his days are usually spent buying advertising space for big corporate brands…like Barclaycard. (She boos.)
	Or I should say he used to, up until about six months ago when he decided to leave his job, make this show with me and come on tour for a year.
	Now. If you didn’t know it already Tim and I are a real life human being couple. So this unfortunately guys is going to be a love story. Sorry gross. But an unconventional one. One between two people that absolutely love the film Dumb and Dumber; or two people who like to make fart noises when the other one bends down in public spaces, but a love story nonetheless.
	And as with all love stories, in the movies, in books…or on the stage, we had to leave quite a lot of stuff out. Because they only give you an hour. So we decide to remove, for your viewing pleasure, the mundanity of everyday existence.
	Like, in the first draft we took out the scene ‘Why Am I Making Breakfast When I Fucking Made It Yesterday?!”. We recently made the dramaturgical decision to remove the morning sickness d...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword
• Bird Hunter, Matador, Shaman, Bride
• The story of Bryony and Tim
• Act One
• Act Two
• Act Three
• By the Same Author