 With the amount of neurodivergent-focused shows continuing to grow at the Fringe, it’s heartening to see this representation gaining space. Eleanor May Blackburn’s A Sudden, Disturbing To-Do List does something particularly striking within this wave and it lets the neurodivergent traits speak for themselves, without ever assigning a diagnostic label. That absence feels not like a gap, but a deliberate choice: the silence around our leads condition mirrors the silence that has long surrounded generations of women whose struggles went unnamed, overlooked, or misunderstood.
Phoebe, 28, abandons a night out to retreat home, trading her glittering dress for pyjamas and the relentless cycle of her lists. Her bedroom becomes both sanctuary and prison, a space where compulsion and exhaustion collide. The only intrusions from the outside world are voicemails from loved ones that aware that something is wrong, but without the vocabulary or framework to describe it. For decades, diagnostic systems were built around male presentations of autism and ADHD, meaning that women and girls often slipped through the cracks. Their struggles were reframed as anxiety, depression, or simply “being difficult,” forcing them to mask, to adapt, and to carry an invisible weight without recognition or support. Blackburn’s refusal to name Phoebe’s condition holds up a mirror to this reality: the character embodies traits of combined type ADHD, and co-occuring conditions of autism and mental health conditions, but the absence of a label and lack of knowledge from loved ones reflects the experience for so many women. Blackburn lays bare the compulsions that shape Phoebe’s life and the ripples they send through every corner of her existence with friendships, intimacy, self-care, mental health, and overall wellbeing. The play also touches on a striking reality of ADHD: how development can appear uneven, even arrested, so that someone in their late twenties may still present with traits often associated with much younger ages. Likewise she can recognise her behaviour as irrational, even self-sabotaging, yet still finds herself caught in the trap of repetition and compulsion. The result is relentless, both for her and for us, and Blackburn uses that relentlessness to draw the audience into an experience that feels almost immersive in its claustrophobia and sorrow. Phoebe’s interior world is layered with references to her love of The Lord of the Rings. As her mental health deteriorates, she begins conversing with an imagined pink monster, a manifestation that blurs the line between comfort and torment. The image recalls Tolkien’s Gollum and Smeagol—two halves locked in a constant battle with their ring obsession and it’s a striking comparison that feels both playful and deeply tragic. Where Gollum has his cave, Phoebe has her flat, a space of retreat that becomes increasingly suffocating. Her lists, like the “precious,” are both treasure and curse: a mechanism of control that only accelerates her unravelling. Blackburn makes this contrast between fantasy and reality both devastating and familiar. Many neurodivergent women describe clinging to routines, hobbies, or fictional worlds as lifelines when everything else feels unstable or overwhelming. But as Phoebe crumbles and days blur into weeks and months - we see how quickly those lifelines can become chains. The play refuses to sensationalise this collapse; instead, it embodies the exhausting cycle of self-awareness, compulsion, and isolation that so many experience behind closed doors. Lee Hutchison (Lee has fifteen years professional experience of supporting neurodivergent individuals in health, education and employment in Scotland) 4/5 A Sudden, Disturbing To Do List Venue: Mint Studio at Greenside @ George Street Dates: August 19-23rd Time: 2100 Tickets: www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/a-sudden-disturbing-to-do-list |
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