Review: My Beautiful Brain!, theSpace @ Surgeon’s Hall

Hannah Rose Curtis is dyslexic. She doesn’t like the label, but there’s really no avoiding it. And for much of her life, being dyslexic has clearly defined her, because once you are labelled dyslexic, “you are branded a failure”. But the one thing that she has excelled at from a young age is theatre. Here she isn’t the slow kid; here she comes alive in ways she might only ever dream of elsewhere. Here she is no longer “the stupid one”. 

My Beautiful Brain! is her story, and her evidence that even that dyslexic young kid can do something amazing. It might take her a little longer because, as she tells us, “I have all the knowledge in here; I just don’t know how to get it out”.

It makes for a sweet and charming show as she takes us through her struggles. It starts at school, and her first experience of the “dumb room”, where she is sent with the other kids who can’t keep up in class. It’s somewhere that she will find herself regularly, even if it’s not called the dumb room elsewhere. Yet each incarnation of it is degrading, perhaps representing more a failure of a one-size-fits-all education system, an idea that could be further explored than it is here.

You must appreciate the efforts that have clearly gone into the show, especially when writing the script must take additional effort. But with so many shows about a performer’s struggles in life and how theatre saved them, to stand out, they need something different, something unique. Here, Curtis’ enthusiasm for performing, and especially musical numbers, comes through, clear and strong. Her whole face lights up whenever she talks about that aspect of her life. Her occasional interludes into music highlight her great singing voice, so why not lean into this even further, turning her experiences into a full-blown musical? As she takes us through school days and failed Tinder dates, you sense that these could so easily become songs. She already has some killer one-liners that would make hooks within the songs: “maths was definitely meths” is a song lyric just waiting to be written. As for the typo that changes Brain to Brian in her professional debut programme notes, there’s a chorus already half-written. 

My Beautiful Brain is very much a fringe show, the sort you will find littered throughout Edinburgh at this time of year. And they are vital; they highlight the struggles that so many people, not just performers, have gone through in life. Each time topics such as dyslexia are addressed full-on, you suspect they help another person with a diagnosis see the light at the end of the tunnel. But with so many to choose from, they risk all just becoming a little too similar, needing that unique selling point to stand out.  Curtis’s story is full of energy and excitement at having found her place within a chaotic life, and for that she needs to be applauded.

Written by Hannah Rose Curtis

My Beautiful Brain plays at theSpace @ Surgeon’s Hall until Saturday 29 August as part of the Edinburgh Fringe.