Name: The City for Incurable Women
Start: 2026-03-27T19:30:00+00:00
End: 2026-04-08T20:30:00+00:00
Location: The Wardrobe Theatre

Ladies and Gentlethem – feeling a little upset? Have you tried hypnosis, psychoanalysis, smelling salts and it just doesn’t work? Try The City for Incurable Women!

Paris, 1880s. In a psychiatric hospital, female patients performed ‘hysteria’ for the public. The doctors went to extraordinary lengths to prove their theories about the four stages of madness. Today, in the 21st century, the storyteller Kae, begins to explore this history. They trace the echoes to the present, feeling them linger in their own body, and perhaps get a little too caught in the story.

International theatre-collective, fish in a dress follow the thread of the history of hysteria in their critically-acclaimed show (★★★★ The Stage, ★★★★★ Theatre Weekly) as the audience becomes complicit in an outrageous tale of medical misogyny. (Warning: hysteria cure not included).

“High-precision performance that crackles with vulnerability, confusion and intelligence.”

★★★★ The Guardian

Devised by fish in a dress. Supported by Goethe Institut and London Performance Studios.

Performer – Charlotte McBurney

Director – Christina Deinsberger

Writer – Helena McBurney

Set & Costume Design – Vanessa Sampaio Borgmann

Sound Design – Bella Kear