ABOUT SHMEDIC

"I'm so tired, I'm jealous of a corpse.."

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Meet Shmedic - a young black Welsh girl whose dream is as pure as it is urgent: become a doctor and save her little brother Chuk from his debilitating sickle cell disease.

But when a night shift from hell and an untimely encounter with a dead body render her unable to sleep, she finds that all dreams come with a wake up call...
 
We join Shmedic mid-therapy session, in a desperate attempt to cover the cracks. Through a series of sound-fuelled flashbacks, we follow her journey through the harsh reality of clinical failure and the slow crawl to recovery.​

 

Written and performed by NHS doctor turned National Theatre actress Sara Otung and directed by Antoinette Jackman, this one woman play interrogates medical burnout, resilience and grief, with sickle cell disease, the fastest growing genetic disorder in the UK, at the heart of the story. The play sits at the intersection of political theatre and confessional storytelling, raising questions that will linger.

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Sound design by Alessandro Quaranta brings the best of audio in theatre, with a soundscape that creates worlds and ever-changing characters through a multiverse script, so that no two performances are the same.

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Dramaturgy by Davina Moss (Sherman Theatre)

Lighting design by Sam Cole (The Nest)

Therapy consultant Kate Medlin