REDCAPE Theatre presents The Idiot Colony at Exeter Phoenix on Tuesday, January 13.
The show was created after two years of research, using interviews with former patients, mental health workers and hairdressers and others that lived and worked at St Margaret's Hospital, Great Barr — known locally as The Idiot Colony.
Joy, Mary and Victoria are trying to remember their past and forget their present.
Locked away as young women in a 1940s asylum they seek solace and friendship inside its hairdressing salon.
Here, as the radio plays the latest 80s hits, they re-live war-time affairs, illicit trysts and childhood secrets.
With their recollections come strains of Glen Miller tunes and Rita Hayworth movies.
The discord of the asylum tells a different tale; ritual humiliation, forced drug experimentation and long, lonely nights.
The story of each woman's struggle to survive incarceration results in three starkly contrasting endings.
RedCape use highly visual, physical theatre and nostalgic comedy to entertain and challenge their audiences.
Doors open at 8pm. Tickets cost £7/£9. Box office: 01392 667080