Writer: Christopher McAuley
Consultant Director: Laura Murphy
With Itch Christopher McAuley has created a show of pure and unadulterated vulnerability, which makes it simultaneously a warm and intimate experience and a pushing against the bounds of comfort. Already on the stage when the audience is invited into the Boy’s School, McAuley is shrouded beneath an aerial silk, his body delicately folded on the floor. The beginning of the piece juxtaposes the very satisfying visual of a body twisting and twitching along the floor under this sheer fabric, with the extremely difficult aural sensation of nails tearing repeatedly across skin. The show continues with contradiction; McAuley’s gorgeous aerial trapeze performances, that showcase every inch of his skin, against the story of his battle with said skin.
The trapeze work is only one facet of this piece, McAuley tells much of his story directly to the audience, moving around the space with a microphone, and also includes both visual and audio elements that layer on top of one another. At one point the silk acts as a projector screen, and we get a subtitled conversation between McAuley and his father, at another point close up images of eczema scars and flare ups continue to roll while McAuley meticulously examines his own body with a flashlight behind the silk. His disembodied voice twists around the room in stereo, creating a choral effect to accompany his on stage presence. Through these various mediums we learn a lot about him, and not just about his eczema; he shares his likes and loves, titbits from his time in school, some of his experiences of queerness, particularly through the lens of his home city of Belfast, and what it was like to grow up as a child of the ceasefire. All of these things weave in and out of his relationship with his skin.
Despite the way these things are connected, and McAuley’s exceptional command of his body and the stage, there is something a little disjointed about the show; the pieces all sit next to each other but perhaps don’t feel as though they entirely fit together. But this may well be due to the fact that this is the beginning of this show, rather than the final iteration of it; there is plenty of richness to be explored here in McAuley’s story, perspective, and extensive talent, not only physically but as a storyteller as well. What remains resolutely undeniable is the simply exquisite vulnerability displayed in this performance, the description of the show tells you to expect to fall in love, and it seems unlikely that anyone could resist doing so.
Reviewed Sept 13th 2025.
