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About The Bipolar Express
The wonkiest not Christmas show Manchester dares to dream of - aka my dad’s like Santa, he only comes around at Christmas.
Welcome on board the Bipolar Express,
Where you will meet…
The ghost of family Christmas trauma,
Rudolph the attention-deficit reindeer,
The treatment wait listers,
Marijuana decriminalisers,
And gender-queer karaoke-ers,
AKA Santa’s little helpers.
We’ll be calling at NHS wait lists, CAHMS reception, and 10 Downing Street,
Where we’ll be delivering something other than a sack full of joy.
We have plenty of neuro-spicy to season your greetings,
So grab a vegan mince pie and settle in for the ride.
Join Manchester’s semi-notorious mental health art, activism and mutual care group as they share poems, performances, tasks for calm vibes, singing and other things they have been working on. Don’t expect a polished Christmas show - who has energy for that? No. Come with loving vibes for young people struggling with their mental health who are funny, silly, full of rage and down for upheaval.
Balmy Army, in their own words
About our title and language
We use the language around mental health from a place of love. In no way are we intending to cause harm. Everyone who works on Balmy Army is a person who has struggled with their mental health. We use the language we do to both reclaim language that historically has been used against us and also to bring some silly and joyful vibes. Language is fun, celebrating who we are is amazing, punching down is gammoncore lovers.
Additional access information
There will be space to lay down, stimming toys, soft lighting, ear defenders, space to walk around, plenty of quiet areas, weighted blankets and buckets full of - ‘we understand because it’s the same for us’
We kindly ask you not to wear strong deodorant, perfume or scents.
There will be a safer/braver spaces policy at the door, you will be expected to agree to this to help make everyone welcome and safer.
Due to working on a really small budget, bsl, live captioning and audio description isn’t provided as standard. We can try hard to find the cash to provide this, it would be super helpful to have 4 working days notice if you need this. We acknowledge this isn’t good practice, but we are also supporting around 20 disabled young people with access requirements so our budget is stretched. Thank you for understanding. Please talk to us about your access requirements.
Content
Balmy Army is a project made by people with lived experience of mental health struggles. You can expect content including all kinds of mental health and intersecting experiences. There will be specific triggers given out before specific bits of material. During each event, there will be lots of people to talk to if you find yourself with big feels. Our events are relaxed, it is fine to walk around the space, go get air, stim and so on.
Vibes
Balmy Army is a chilled space, we support each other to make work about stuff that can be hard. It is also a space to be really silly. We love that there can be joy in our resistance. We love that there can be resistance in our joy. So the vibe is wonky/tender/silly/sad/ragey/beautiful. We aren’t providing you with a show with a dinner after. You may have to move a chair around and help out, someone may ask for a tissue, a hug or be very socially awkward around you (we embrace it all).
We promise to try and make you feel very welcome, and feed you double cream oreo.
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