Man Up (ZooTVxIanAbbott, 11-20 August)

There's a vital conversation at the centre of Kloe Dean's spoken word and hip hop piece, concerning mental health and male suicide.

Kloe Dean's Man Up is moving and raw reflection on her father's suicide in 2012. The piece strings together her own youthful naivety, the danger of unacknowledged mental illness and the aftermath of suicide in a thoughtful and mature piece which hits its mark with startling accuracy.

"Dean has rewritten this memory to accommodate a father yearning to return to family life, an incredibly sympathetic take."

Dean's father is portrayed accompanied by a physical manifestation of his mental illness, a carnal presence hunched over him with face veiled. There's a dehumanisation of the Depression figure (played by Stefano A Addae), who grapples with Sean Graham's Father and overpowers him whilst Dean walks in the foreground, oblivious to the conflict. This contrasts the younger self portrayed by Dean, a child who doesn't understand the nuance of mental health. The fact that Dean has rewritten this memory to accommodate a father yearning to return to family life is an incredibly sympathetic take, even alongside her script which identifies the valid anger she felt toward this same person.

Dean's narration touches on several stopping points of grief: she travels through misunderstandings, abandonment and sorrow with calm clarity. Her fluidity of movement carries her through a painful routine juxtaposed with an attempt to form a heart with her hands, a fractured sense of filial duty and longing for stability. The same rope used by Graham later enfolds Dean, stopping her fluidity short and aptly showing the weight of suicide upon the deceased's loved ones.

Monika Davies' cinematography delicately mixes colour with monochrome as the film switches between memory and the present. There's a starkness to the sudden switch as colour floods the screen, a sharp return to reality. The show walks the tightrope of personal performance excellently, guiding the audience confidently through uncomfortable subject matter without ever giving in to desolation. Instead, there's a sympathy stirred throughout: for victims of suicide, the wider ripple effect, and the need for us to carry this vital conversation into the world.

Man Up is available for on demand streaming until 20th August, you can find details and buy tickets here.