Two of Adelaide’s independent artists Jessica Bigg and Eliza Dickson are putting on Late to the Party: The ADHD Hour, a cabaret exploring all things ADHD and being diagnosed later in life. The duo will take the audience on the joyful, wild and chaotic rollercoaster of life with a neuro-spicy brain.
A seed was planted for the show when Bigg was diagnosed with ADHD in 2023. Coming from a musical family, with years of experience in the arts and performing at the Fringe, she was ready to produce a solo show. Then one night Bigg had dinner with Dickson. “We were talking about it, and I saw her eyes just light up and I was like… you wanna do it together? So here we are,” Bigg says.
Bigg was diagnosed with ADHD after struggling through childhood and adulthood not understanding how her brain worked. Since being diagnosed she has discovered how life-changing understanding your brain is. “Make friends with your brain, it’s like getting to know a person, they’re in your life whether you like it or not so get to know it and understand how it works.
“If you’re willing to open up to things and make friends with your brain, there’s no loss here, there’s only wins.”
The duo is stepping outside their comfort zones to bring the Fringe something super personal. “This is a little bit deeper than normal, we are putting ourselves into the show, so we’re a little bit scared, but we’re really excited,” she says.
The show will be broken down into relatable aspects of having ADHD, such as constantly losing things, time blindness and rejection-sensitive dysphoria. The audience should expect a show full of belly laughs, singalongs and bucketloads of relatable content. Get prepared to sing your lungs out to parodies such as ‘Brain on Fire’, the duo’s ADHD take on ‘Girl on Fire’ by Alicia Keys.
Bigg has come to realise that much of what people with ADHD experience, everyone experiences. Neurodiverse people just often experience it more. “So everybody loses stuff, but, a neurodiverse person will lose their sunnies, and their phone and bump into the corner of a kitchen cupboard…,” she says. Many of these things seem trivial, but Bigg wants to start talking about what it is like to do lots of these things, every day, without being able to help it. Although the show is full of laughs it holds an important underlying message of “making friends with it, normalising it and laughing about it,” she says.
Despite the show being by two women with ADHD, all the symptoms explored are relatable to neurodiverse people of all genders. Bigg wants it to be for absolutely anyone whether you have ADHD, think you might have ADHD, have a friend or family member with ADHD or just want a good laugh. “The show is going to be fun, lowkey and educational, it’s for everybody. It’s very disarming and very relaxed… it won’t be too scripted, because it’s us and it’s just going to be really fun,” she says.
The hardest part of putting on this show has been trying to get two ADHD brains to focus on the project. Much to Bigg and Dickson’s surprise, the show is somehow coming together. “It’s a miracle this show is happening,” Bigg jokes.
Late to the Party: The ADHD Hour, Plant 4 Bowden, until 9 March