In their latest standup show God’s Favourite, Scout Boxall invites their audience back to one of the worst nights of their life.
While gradually donning a hand-sewn 14th-century nun’s habit, Boxall tells the story of a time they realised they had forgotten their medication for bipolar disorder while staying in a caravan park in regional Victoria. Without transport or internet reception, and no way to access more, they enter withdrawal and experience being unmedicated for the first time in 12 years. As they drift further from reality and time becomes slippery, the show’s narrative becomes less linear, jumping between medieval martyrs, Wordle strategy and disastrous psychiatrist visits, sometimes without taking a breath.
The reason Boxall has ended up so far from a chemist is to attend a wedding. Not a real wedding, they emphasise, but a Larp wedding. Larp, or live-action roleplay, is an elaborately constructed game of costumed roleplaying, often staged over whole weekends. Boxall is a Larp fanatic. They spend nights and weekends improvising epic battles and dangerous quests – think Dungeons and Dragons, but if you’re really committed. And when choosing a character, Boxall is drawn again and again to playing a nun.
