By Jessica Taurins.
I’ve seen a lot of shows at the Malthouse. Some are great, some are less so, some are true art, and some are called ‘art’ but are less artistic than the gum I’ve scraped out of my shoes.
God’s Favourite? That’s Art. Capital A Art.
Scout Boxall enters the stage in a simple nun’s robe, with the remaining pieces of the costume added over the course of the hour-long show-slash-thinkpiece-slash-performance-slash-mental-breakdown. Sometimes they believe themselves to be God’s favourite, toeing the thin line between delusions of grandeur and an actual grippy sock holiday, and sometimes they perform as God’s favourite, because for some reason they’re always a nun when they LARP.
(LARPing, which is important for the show, is like Dungeons and Dragons, but acted out in real life with foam swords at night on a dimly lit sports oval.
And Dungeons and Dragons, which is also important for the show, is when a group of nerds get together to think about fighting monsters with swords, but they actually just write things down and roll dice to see how good they are at swords today.)
The premise of Boxall’s show is that they are hosting a LARP wedding, but they forgot their Seroquel (an anti-psychotic that helps with sleep). They recount what they call ‘the worst night of their life’ across the hour, interwoven with stories about ancient women of God, their own life story, and most likely some of the greatest spoken prose presented in any MICF 2025 show.
Boxall is incredibly well spoken, the depth of which is revealed as the story progresses. As their night unfolds and their sleeplessness worsens, they become more verbose, more intense, and somehow more terrifying. Sure, there are jokes, but the grip of exhaustion-induced religious faith combined with the ever-present nun outfit brings their monologue to dizzying, frightening heights as they describe their last moments before sunrise.
It’s all fine, obviously. They get a script for their meds and fall into blessed sleep, but every moment prior bleeds tension from the past into the audience’s very soul. Boxall’s performance is enhanced with lights and sounds, which become more eerie and unsettling as time goes on. By the end, we can hear their screeching head and beating heart as the lights flicker shadows across their face.
God’s Favourite is a real artistic success. Boxall has carefully woven comedy with the reality of mental disorders, shifting from terror-induced hallucinations to a fun story of trying to hook up at a LARP when nobody will break character. Boxall has a smugness about having bipolar instead of boring, silly ADHD, and that’s fine with me – at least my ADHD just makes me obsessed with Pokemon instead of thinking I’ve been anointed by the heavens to be the best at investing in crypto currency.
If God’s Favourite returns to a festival anytime or anywhere, it is an absolute must see.
