THE RHUM PLANTS // Mangonel Theatre

The Rhum Plants describes the story of Professor John Heslop-Harrison, purveyor of ‘botanical fraud’ in post-war Britain. It’s fast-paced multirole, irreverent comedy and hyper-verbosity of scientific and Latinate vocabulary, serve to illustrate the intense interiority of this tight-knit, peer-reviewed research field. The text is at times difficult to follow for the uninitiated, but it is interesting to see how even the seemingly most niche of scientific scandals can be dramatised for a general public. The passion exhibited by both the characters and performers in their discussion of Heslop-Harrison’s fraudulent ‘discoveries’ offer an insight into the historically fraught margins of research within many scientific fields. (HM)

THE RHUM PLANTS, Mangonel Theatre, 25th, 27-30h August, Sweet Grassmarket. Wheelchair Access, Level Access, Wheelchair accessible toilets. 

https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/rhum-plants

Recent case of fraud, in HIV science

http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/42285/title/HIV-Scientist-Pleads-Guilty-to-Fraud/

TUTTE CONTRO VERDI // Isifuera S.L. & Miren de Miguel

Miren de Miguel, established soprano within the Italian and Spanish opera circuit, has developed this solo performance piece in order to critique the roles of women within the canon of 19th century composer Guiseppe Verdi. She shares a range of arias with us, as well as established female characters such as Carmen, Violeta and Desdemona. The winding narrative of the feminist analysis is at times hard to follow; projected surtitles can divide non-Italian speaking spectators’ attention, and the translation left some of the argument indistinct. Nevertheless, Miguel’s performance explores the fates of women throughout Verdi, and how the failings of the male characters are taken on and writ upon the female bodies; in despair, violence, and suicide. 

At times the purpose of the piece may feel ahistorical, or approached from too conservative a feminist standpoint – what is the value in mining pre-20th century classical tropes for their inevitable misogyny? How can that analysis be brought into relation with contemporary feminism, and the treatment of women and women’s bodies in modern performance, particularly the strenuous and elitist field of opera? Yet Tutte Contro Verdi still embodies its own feminist intentions, however blurry their elucidation: in creating her own solo piece, and framing Verdi’s arias in her own criticism, she has removed the ‘woman’ in opera from its debilitating attachment to the male.

TUTTE CONTRO VERDI, Isifuera S.L. & Miren de Miguel, until Aug 17th, New Town Theatre. This venue is not wheelchair accessible. Please contact venue for further accessibility details. (HM)

https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/tutte-contro-verdi

More on Tutte Contro Verdi: http://tuttecontroverdi.com/en/

Opinion in Edinburgh Feminist Review

https://edfeministreview.wordpress.com/2015/08/12/review-tutte-contro-verdi/

Natasha Walter on ‘Wagner’s Women’, feminism themes in the Ring Cycle

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2006/apr/15/classicalmusicandopera

See our Diagnosis of Monica Salvi’s Mad Women In My Attic!, which analyses gender roles in musical theatre

https://the-sick-of-the-fringe.squarespace.com/config#/|/diagnoses/2015/8/25/mad-women-in-my-attic-monica-salvi

2013 segment in BBC Radio 4’s Women’s Hour on Verdi’s heroines

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03c46nw

THIS IS NOT A MAGIC SHOW Vincent Gambini

In Vincent Gambini’s solo performance piece not only do we experience some impressive and entertaining card and coin tricks but we also gain insight into the process of showing and performing work itself. What goes on in the mind of a magician? What is the audience thinking as they watch a magician perform? What role does magic play within society today? On a very practical level Vincent reveals that he is anxious and unsure about the best tricks to open and close his show with, eventually calling the Magic Circle hotline for advice (where coincidentally both Derren Brown and David Blane are on hand for him to speak to). He also speaks from time to time to ‘Little Fish’ a card with a felt-tip fish on it that lives in the pocket of his magician’s suit jacket, a uniform he barely wears nowadays and for good reason it turns out- when he slips it on he becomes a garish children’s entertainer. Towards the end of the piece compelling research gathered from a neuroscientist is shared and on a meta-level an awareness of the slipperiness of fiction and identities seeps into everything. A feeling which is further underlined by the fact Vincent Gambini is of course the nom de plume of performance artist Augusto Corrieri. (SG)

THIS IS NOT A MAGIC SHOW, Vincent Gambini, 17-21 August, Forest Fringe. This venue is wheelchair accessible.                                        http://forestfringe.co.uk/edinburgh2015/event/vincent-gambini/2015-08-19/

More on August Corrieri                                                                                 www.augustocorrieri.com

The psychological experience of the performer is also explored in MUST the inside story by Peggy Shaw:                                                               http://www.clodensemble.com/performance/must.htm

The psychology of being part of an audience is often the focus of Foced Entertainment’s work  www.forcedentertainment.com

Lyn Gardner on Forced Entertainment        http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2009/feb/23/forced-entertainment-sheffield

Artist Tim Bromage also uses magic and interdisciplinary performance to investigate the ways we watch and perceive                                                       http://www.axisweb.org/features/profile/open-frequency/tim-bromage/

EASY FOR YOU TO SAY // Rowan James

Punk poet Rowan James and beatbox performer Marv Radio kick off the show by deconstructing the tick-box labels that come with audience monitoring forms. White, White Other, Black, Black Other, Mixed, Chinese, Other... Read aloud, these labels feel uncomfortable, and whose business is it anyway? Comfort is momentarily found in catch-all tick-box, 'Prefer not to say'. 

James and Marv Radio literally bounce off one another, interweaving spoken word, poetry and beatboxing with generous audience interaction to tell the story of how Rowan became a punk poet. 

A wonderfully synergistic sequence that embodies both their friendship, the marriage of their artforms and their diversity is inspired by the arrhythmic beat of Rowan's heart. 

This crowdfunded show is a show made with love. As the labels and faux norms prescribed by others fell away, we witnessed the birth of an identity from a fusion of music, poetry and the particularities of Rowan's speech. Rowan tells us that a lack of oxygen to his brain at birth resulted in speech and language differences. His art reclaims the medicalised body through performance and I came away feeling a whole lot better about the world. 

The show's development is partly supported through Stopgap Dance Company's iF Platform which is showcasing the work of five fringe artists with disabilities, including touretteshero's 'Backstage in Biscuitland' and Jo Bannan's 'Alba'. (EO) 

EASY FOR YOU TO SAY, Rowan James, Marv Radio, Cambridge Junction, Stopgap Dance, until August 30th, 4pm, Zoohouse. Venue is wheelchair accessible.  https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/rowan-james-easy-for-you-to-say  

More on Rowan James: rowanjamespoet.co.uk

Marv Radio's YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/marvillmusic  

Guardian mention: http://www.theguardian.com/stage/theatreblog/2015/jun/04/edinburgh-festival-2015-what-to-see-and-where-to-go 

Slate the Disco review: http://slatethedisco.com/2015/05/live-review-easy-for-you-to-say-at-watch-out-festival/ 

Disability arts online: 

Stopgap Dance's iF Platform 

http://stopgapdance.com/about/if-platform 

Backstage in Biscuitland diagnosis 

http://thesickofthefringe.com/diagnoses/2015/8/5/backstage-in-biscuitland-touretteshero

MAD WOMEN IN MY ATTIC! // Monica Salvi

Mad Women In My Attic is an energetic, cabaret-style show by Monica Salvi, accompanied by a pianist (dressed in a doctor’s coat). The reason for the doctor’s coat soon becomes clear as Salvi sings musical hit after musical hit casting her in various ways as ‘psychologically disturbed’. We see her as an over-the-top seductress, a killer driven mad by love, suicidal and grief-stricken (to name but a few of the identities she takes on) and learn that all of these tropes are the only type of role that seems available to her. Woven around the songs is the loose narrative that the audience are her fellow psychiatric patients or perhaps even just a figment of her imagination. While the over-arching storyline, and re-performance of the songs in ‘classic’ costume, occasionally re-inscribes the very subject matter it is trying to critique, the piece usefully examines how women are continually re-cast in the same roles within musicals. (SG)

MAD WOMEN IN MY ATTIC!, Monica Salvi, Just Festival at St. John’s, 24-26, 28-29, 31 August. Wheelchair Access, Level Access, Hearing Loop and Wheelchair Accessible Toilets available. https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/mad-women-in-my-attic

More on the show: http://www.madwoman.org.uk

More on Monica Salvi: http://www.monicasalvi.com

Such stereotypes have been very deftly explored by Dickie Beau in Blackouts - a work which examines the very public addictions of Judy Garland and Marilyn Monroe.

http://www.dickiebeau.com/Dickie_Beau/Blackouts.html

See also the work of Bobby Baker, woman and artist investigating mental health: http://dailylifeltd.co.uk/about-us/people/daily-life-ltd-team/bobby-baker/

‘C’est Vauxhall’, from Duckie - alternative cabaret show, playing withmusical theatre tropes: http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2002/dec/14/theatre.artsfeatures1

Two Sheila Ghelani pieces (‘Etyma - A Tiding of Good Words’ and ‘And Fell Unto a Circle Square’) both made co-creatively with service-users in a psychiatric ward: http://www.sheilaghelani.co.uk/etyma-a-tiding-of-good-words/ http://www.sheilaghelani.co.uk/and-fell-unto-a-circle-sphere

Vacuum Cleaner, artist working with experience of mental health difficulties: http://www.thevacuumcleaner.co.uk

SPILLIKIN - A LOVE STORY // Pipeline Theatre

In this play main character Sally revisits the love story of her and her now deceased partner as Alzheimer’s begins to takes hold of her. She is now mostly alone in her flat apart from having the company of a real life (and quite extraordinary) human-style robot that communicates with her and helps her to remember. The robot was built by her ‘brainiac’ husband Raymond and is filled to the brim with his memories. Through the aid of flashbacks we witness a young Sally and a young Raymond meeting for the first time. We also learn that Raymond has a 50 percent chance of inheriting a degenerative disease from his father (100 percent Sally later confirms) and as a result has ensured Sally is cared for in his absence through the means of the robot he’s created for her. The idea of a love story operates on many levels; not only are we witnessing the story of two young lovers but also the changing relationship between human and machine. A relationship which, in the modern world of pacemakers, life support, implants and artificial limbs, is becoming increasingly intertwined, intense and complex. (SG)

SPILLIKIN – A LOVE STORY, Pipeline Theatre, Pleasance Dome, until August 31st. Wheelchair Access, Level Access, Hearing Loop available. May not be available on all dates, please contact venue for further details.                                                                     https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/spillikin-a-love-story

More on Pipeline Theatre: http://www.pipelinetheatre.com

Arthur House in The Telegraph on the future of biotech: http://s.telegraph.co.uk/graphics/projects/the-future-is-android/

Live and visual artist Stelarc, who works with technological body modification: www.stelarc.org

Channel 4’s series Humans – in which robotics can create fully synthetic human assistants  http://www.channel4.com/programmes/humans

The show have created a website for their fictional company ‘Persona Synthetics’: http://www.personasynthetics.com

Alzheimer’s Society page on assistive technolgical for people with dementia http://www.alzheimers.org.uk/site/scripts/documents_info.php?documentID=109

Clod Ensemble’s ‘Extravagant Acts for Mature People’ – free arts events for over-65s http://www.clodensemble.com/extact.htm

WOMEN'S HOUR // Sh!t Theatre

This fast-paced sketch cabaret charts the multitude of ridiculous, contradictory and impossible-to-escape media messages focused on women: their body, their behaviour, their health and more. Sh!t Theatre’s take-no-prisoners approach is relentless in its pace, its volume, and in its critique of an inequitable world. The evils exposed in Women’s Hour range from serious large-scales injustices (looking at rape culture, near-universal pay inequality and the sexualisation of children) to tiny injustices (gendered kinder eggs, for example) with equal fervour, demonstrating how the structures of sexism work on wildly divergent scales, and with a consistency which is frightening. The effects on women are both specific and political (calling out the ‘luxury tax’ on tampons) and emotionally, and universally overwhelming. The pace and the humour and the noise are but one of the results of the mixed messages, gender policing and pandemic inequity, and Sh!t captures it without apology.  (BL)

WOMEN'S HOUR, Sh!t Theatre, Summerhall, 21, 23, 24, 26, 28, 30 August. Level Access. Contact venue for further information on accessibility.

https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/women-s-hour  

She’s a princess.

Bryony Kimmings on the sexualisation of young girls:

http://www.bryonykimmings.com/clsrm.html

Adrienne Truscott’s Asking for It:

http://www.adriennetruscott.com/asking-for-it/

On sexism and Nigella Lawson

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/womens-blog/2013/dec/05/nigella-lawson-trial-media-appearance-charles-saatchi

Debate around FEMEN’s activism from 2013-2014:

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/05/put-your-shirts-back-on-why-femen-is-wrong/275582/

Because we couldn’t believe it either: information on mink eyelashes

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2144681/Celebrity-trend-REAL-mink-eyelashes-sweeps-UK-salons.html

THE HIDDEN WORLD OF FUNCTIONAL DISORDERS // Dr Jon Stone at the Cabaret of Dangerous Ideas

Dr Stone introduces this ‘hidden world’ with this quandary: the symptoms of some functional neurological disorders (FNDs) resemble someone pretending to suffer from those symptoms. A patient might lose their tremor in one hand when they are preoccupied with a task for the other, for example – impossible for someone with MS, but symptomatic of both people with neurological disorders, and anyone consciously trembling their hand. The physical symptoms originate from the nervous symptom, thus might be alleviated when the limb is responding to reflex alone. However, this fact of the disorder presents several issues, with diagnostic practice, social stigma, and the divide between psychiatry and neurology.

Dr Stone’s presentation highlighted a range of overlapping debates around fraudulence, disability allowance, and the stigmatisation of people living with conditions that don’t outwardly present in ways recognisable to the general public.  Stone raises our society’s current fixation with benefit fraud, and the danger of people with FNDs being refused treatment if they are thought to be ‘faking it’ (if not for benefits, then as ‘drug-seeking behaviour’ – an experience illustrated in Mel Moon’s autobiographical Fringe show Sick Girl). His professional diagnostic experience renders him confident in distinguishing between people with a disorder and possible frauds, but the separation is still very reliant on the discretion of clinicians. The talk also featured a guest outpatient of Dr Stone’s, who suffers from dissociative seizures. Her story prompted discussion of the importance of educating employers about managing staff with FNDs, although the plaudits given her for being in work had the potential to undermine the destigmatisation of benefits claimants.

The Cabaret of Dangerous Ideas offers an interesting format for public engagement and discussion with frontline science, and continues with a programme of expert speakers from myriad fields. (HM)

THE CABARET OF DANGEROUS IDEAS, different speakers every day until August 30th, Stand in the Square. Wheelchair Access, Level Access, Wheelchair-accessible toilets available.

Full programme here: http://codi.beltanenetwork.org/codi-2015/the-shows/

Website for Functional and Dissociative Neurological Symptoms: http://www.neurosymptoms.org

Suzanna O’Sullivan in The Guardian on functional neurological disorders and the stigma of ‘faking it’: http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/may/16/you-think-im-mad-the-truth-about-psychosomatic-illness

Dr Jon Stone on functional neurological disorders, delivered to the North British Pain Association, 2014: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4obwKD8JLU

Access All Areas,: Live Art and Diability, NYC, from the Live Art Development Agency (LADA): http://www.thisisliveart.co.uk/projects/access-all-areas-live-art-and-disability-nyc-edition/

The Eye of the Storm Symposium, culmination of artist Catherine Long’s residency with UCL’s Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience, investigating connections between the body, movement and neurology: http://expectationviolation.com

TSOTF Diagnosis of Sick Girl by Mel Moon, who was accused of drug-seeking behaviour and reflects on rare conditions: http://thesickofthefringe.com/diagnoses/2015/8/9/sick-girl-mel-moon

HOW TO BE FAT // Mathilda Gregory

Mathilda Gregory’s How to Be Fat mixes stand-up comedy, storytelling and self-experimentation to deliver a performance about fatness, body policing, how one feels about their body and how this grows, changes, move forward, moves backward and often contradicts itself. Gregory’s various months spent documenting her food intake and adherence to different fad diets, feels like Instagram running amok, and is reminiscent of early scientists conducting experiments on themselves – somewhere between Benjamin Franklin and Jekyll and Hyde. The many contradictions inside the work are not the result of inconsistent storytelling (very much not so) but rather because Gregory is responding to the world of the policed female body, and the institutional structures which demand certain kinds (and amounts) of consumption and blame anyone who doesn’t fit into a prescribed norm.  Gregory charts these conflicting messages inside herself and also lambasts the etiquette and judgements around size which make it impossible to talk about fatness, and bodies, in public with both people who identify as fat, and those who do not.

While Gregory’s story is a personal one – and she makes sure to only make claims on her own experience – the work is a political one, bringing to mind Carol Hanisch’s seminal ‘The Personal is Political’ which charts how individual experience and oppression demands collective action. By charting the micro-aggresions and inequity experienced by fat people from various sectors in society, it is clear that a more collective approach is needed to open up conversation. Mathilda Gregory is in good company with work on body shaming and body positivity, with other artists including Selina Thompson, Le Gateau Chocolat (currently at Assembly, diagnosis on Black below), Scottee, and Charlotte Cooper’s blog Obesity Timebomb.

HOW TO BE FAT Mathilda Gregory 7-31 August Zoo Southside. Wheelchair Access and Level Access. https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on#q=%22How%20to%20Be%20Fat%22

More about Mathilda Gregory: https://mathildia.wordpress.com/

‘The Personal is Political’ http://www.carolhanisch.org/CHwritings/PIP.html

Scottee’s Short Film FAT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8nS5HpZirE

Ten Strange Self-Experiments: http://www.madsciencemuseum.com/msm/gallery/top_10_strangest_self_experiments

Obesity Timebomb Blog: http://obesitytimebomb.blogspot.co.uk/

OBLIVIOUS // Jamie MacDonald

Jamie MacDonald charts his experience with being oblivious to many things around him. Although his blindness keeps him physically unaware of much of his surrounding, the obliviousness he actually charts in his stand-up comedy reflects on much more, considering his experiences through childhood, trying to impress his fiancé, and trying to deal with the world’s ever-growing acceptance and accessibility to disabled people. MacDonald charts the downside of a post-paralympic interest and public engagement with disability – talked about extensively by artists like Katherine Araniello and DAG (Disabled Avant-Garde) – which promotes inclusion at all costs, and often presses disabled people to provide inspiration for others. While MacDonald speaks about the burdens of accessibility with a cheeky grin, the expectations of sameness and a ‘nondisabled washing’ points to things that may be lost as everyone becomes expected to achieve the same things. While we know that the world of his childhood – in which he was humiliated for his disability by students and patronised by teachers – was not an ideal environment for feeling empowered as a young man, the world he shows as existing today (exemplified by a young child feeling free to annoy him with all sorts of questions about his blindness) may still have some great inequalities and annoyances. (BL) 

JAMIE MACDONALD: OBLIVIOUS Jamie MacDonald, Assembly George Square, 7-30 August. Venue is wheelchair accessible.

More on Jamie MacDonald: https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/jamie-macdonald-oblivious

Acoustic Shooting (Described by MacDonald in Oblivion): http://www.disabledshooting.org.uk/getting-started/introduction-to-shooting-disciplines/acoustic-shooting.html

Katherine Araniello: http://www.araniello-art.com/

Further reading: http://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/national-paralympic-day-artists-dismiss-talk-of-2012-legacy/

MAGIKO // Siegfried Tieber & Dog House Theatricals

This close-up magic show is spectacular without containing any spectacle, with Siegfried Tieber’s storytelling engaging an audience in not only the individual tricks, but in our society’s broader understanding of mystery, illusion, and what it means to live with curiosity. Tieber’s mindreading and sleight of hand tricks challenge our confidence – if we see something, it must be real, mustn’t it? Similar to Complicite’s The Encounter (currently part of the Edinburgh International Festival, which cleverly reveals the mechanism in the binaural sound design), Magiko seemingly shows how the trick is made and then quickly, and astoundingly, expands the magic into a place where your mind wasn’t looking. These tricks of perception which have been used for ages by magicians and illusionists, are increasingly relevant to science, and scientific research work on phantom limbs, synaesthesia, neurological disorders, etc. While many successful magicians, such as Penn & Teller (who have engaged with the neuroscience behind their work) use illusions to wow their audiences, Tieber uses the set up to the illusion, as well as the denouement, to make us reconsider why we want to know how it works. Turning scientific and rational inquiry on its head, Tieber encourages us to live in a world that is not fully understood, and seek mystery and magic in our own lives.

MAGIKO, Siegfried Tieber & Dog House Theatricals, 9-31 August, Spotlites

This venue is not accessible for wheelchair users. Please contact venue for other accessibility requirements. https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/magiko

Complicite’s The Encounter: http://www.eif.co.uk/2015/encounter#.VccpwlxVikp

Penn & Teller on Magic & The Brain: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZg1KDEMzjo

On phantom limbs and perception: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15938103

 Vincent Gambini (another great close-up magician): http://www.vincentgambini.com/the-show.html

BLACK // Le Gateau Chocolat

Le Gateau Chocolat mines the personal and the political in this cabaret-infused performance, which embraces an intersectional understanding of identities and powerfully presents a life in progress, without happy endings or narrative closure. The work draws from Le Gateau’s autobiography – while often artists use pseudonyms to hide their personal story, here it feels like the pseudonym and character provide entry into the performer’s authentic self, with snippets of reflections, top tips, and animated interludes which guide the story through a challenging life. In a year of BlackLivesMatter and increased recent media attention to gender expression, sexuality, and body policing, a show about any one of these issues would be relevant, but it’s the blending of the issues together which makes the real impact. The final revelation of mental health difficulties, challenges and the spectre of suicide adds an important and unexpected dynamic. Presented without hyperbole, Gateau uses his baritone to push forward the impact that accompanies such a serious story and such a serious consideration of these issues. (BL)

BLACK, Le Gateau Chocolat, 7-30 August, Assembly Hall. Please confirm accessibility with venue: https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/le-gateau-chocolat-black

More on Le Gateau Chocolat: http://legateauchocolat.com/

Other artists working on intersectional identities: Selina Thompson (http://selinathompson.co.uk/), Season Butler (http://seasonbutler.com/), Scottee (http://www.scottee.co.uk/), Ria Hartley (http://riahartley.com/)

Readings on Intersectionality: https://kclintfemsoc.wordpress.com/reading-list/

Recent controversy on body shaming and opera: http://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/operas-fat-shaming-controversy

DISABILITY FOR DUNCES // Lost Voice Guy

In Disability for Dunces, Lost Voice Guy, a 2014 BBC Comedy Award winner, presents a vicious show which unapologetically confronts the nondisabled people he encounters everyday. Lost Voice Guy’s guide demonstrates the often silenced voice in society and how it responds to ignorant comments from wankers (his words). The piece is similar in tone to Franchesca Ramsey’s “Shit White Girls Say to Black Girls” which exposes people to the permissible micro-aggressions experienced by others everyday. And in a climate of decreased benefits for disabled people, and an increased rhetoric around ‘scroungers’ in media and in government, Lost Voice Guy’s comedy is a bold retort, far from the inspirational tomes of many others. Even his occasional, casually misogynistic language works to prove that he is the empowered bastard (his words) he claims to be. 

His descriptions of looking at himself in the mirror are pointed and reminiscent of the work of Lucy Grealy who, in Autobiography of A Face, describes what it’s like to have an unconventional, or non-normative, appearance. And other potent reflections, on the ‘fixing’ of disabled people, feel to be sharing excellent artistic company with documentaries like ‘Fixed’, the play ‘Telethon’ and (plug for future Sick of the Fringe talk) activism by people like Liz Carr. The hour of standup reminds people to engage with all voices, even silent ones. 

DISABILITY FOR DUNCES, Lost Voice Guy, Stand Up Comedy Club - 5 & 6, August 9-30 (various dates). Please contact venue for Accessibility

https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/lost-voice-guy-disability-for-dunces

More information on Lost Voice Guy:

http://lostvoiceguy.com/

Liz Carr - Talk on 'Rather Dead than Disabled'

http://thesickofthefringe.com/people/liz-carr

Francesca Ramsey's "Shit White Girls Say to Black Girls"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylPUzxpIBe0

Lucy Grealy - Autobiography of a Face

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpYgEYhAd1c

Fixed - Documentary

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84TaYi15vps

Telethon - Play by Kristin Newbom

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/24/theater/reviews/24tele.html?_r=0

THE EULOGY OF TOBY PEACH //Toby Peach

We know that Toby Peach will live to the end of his cancer story, of course, because he is the performer, but the journey through his experience with illness remains harrowing. Peach’s solo performance walks the audience through one man’s growth into understanding his own mortality, with reflections on time, appreciation, and meaningful relationships. The work looks at cancer as a strange sort of illness – theoretically speaking – as it grows undetected for a long time (as reflected on by Jackie Stacey in her work Teratologies) and as it is the part of ourselves which is most successfully fights mortality (which is written about in Siddhartha Mukherjee’s The Emperor of All Maladies) – and it is particularly strange for young people, who have never had their life, and the privilege of a long comfortable life, challenged.

Peach’s career as a model – particularly when he was photographed with cancer – interestingly, and unintentionally, echoes the work of both Susan Sontag’s in Cancer and Its Metaphors (which charts how standards of beauty were influenced by plagues) and Matuschka’s groundbreaking mastectomy photo Beauty Out Of Damage from 1993, still one of the most striking and bold images depicting illness. Peach engages with a kind of youthful male humour which is reminiscent of 50/50 (and Seth Rogen's incessant jokes which can be misogynistic and endearing) and a number of recent TCT campaigns. Even as we live in the shadow of Stephen Sutton and a huge increase in awareness of young people’s cancers, we are still in need of more stories – about cancer, about HIV, about invisible illnesses – in hopes of creating a community of bold storytellers creating work about their body and ours. 

THE EULOGY OF TOBY PEACH, Toby Peach, 7-30 August (Various dates), Underbelly Cowgate. No wheelchair access to theatre.

https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/eulogy-of-toby-peach

Jackie Stacey, Teratologies

https://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/the-unspeakable-spectre-of-big-c/105435.article

Siddhartha Mukherjee, The Emperor of All Maladies

http://www.theguardian.com/books/interactive/2011/sep/01/extract-the-emperor-of-all-maladies

Susan Sontag - Cancer & Its Metaphors 

http://www.susansontag.com/SusanSontag/books/illnessAsMetaphor.shtml

Matuschka - Beauty Out of Damage

http://www.beautyoutofdamage.com/Aboutphoto.html

Stephen Sutton

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-27408818

THE ELEMENT IN THE ROOM: A RADIOACTIVE MUSICAL COMEDY ABOUT THE DEATH AND LIFE OF MARIE CURIE // Tangram Theatre Company

Tangram’s retelling of the life and research of Marie Curie encapsulates the passion, dedication and creativity involved in both medical research (particularly early medical research) and art-making, demonstrating a life’s work filled with challenges and sacrifice in the name of uncertain progress. The work, performed by John Hinton (as Curie) and Jo Eagle (on accordion) highlights a number of critical themes important to biomedical research, these include: the ongoing struggles of women to be funded and encouraged in medical training and as research leaders; the uneasy relationship between medical research and private charities; and intellectual property and the winners/losers of extensively patented research.

Curie’s relationship with Missy Meloney (the fundraiser responsible for her not-so-whirlwind tour of America) nicely captures the historic and uneasy relationship between medical research and private funding – and the demands of fundraisers to set agendas – which is also highlighted in Murkherjee’s Emperor of All Maladies, which documents the history of cancer research in the USA. And Tangram’s passionate song about Curie’s decision not to patent her process of radium procurement provides significant proof for the overall rationale for open source technologies, open journals and free resources. While the struggles faced by Curie as a female researcher seem quite heightened by the marginalisation of Eagle (on accordion) into near-silence, the work celebrates the ground-breaking work by an important voice, regardless of gender, and seems to make a passionate claim for equality in research and science.  (BL/KB)

THE ELEMENT IN THE ROOM: A RADIOACTIVE MUSICAL COMEDY ABOUT THE DEATH AND LIFE OF MARIE CURIE, Tangram Theatre Company, 5-31 August (various dates). Pleasance Courtyard. Please check accessibility with venue. http://www.tangramtheatre.co.uk

More on Siddhartha Mukherjee’s The Emperor of All Maladies: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/11/08/cancer-world

On intellectual property – and the patenting of genetic code: http://www.genome.gov/19016590

A history of Rosalind Franklin, noted chemist/geneticist: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2002/10/28/photo-finish-2

A JAM-MAKER’S GUIDE TO SELF-PRESERVATION // MDs Medical Revue

The privatisation and struggle of the NHS to do its work, despite budget crunches and government inaction, provides the backdrop or loose frame for this series of sketches. The MDs Comedy Revue Society’s youthful energy provides both its most problematic and unexpectedly-positive qualities: a number of misogynistic and immature jokes feel frightening when presented by this troupe of medical students and future medical professionals, but the company’s passionate defense and love of the NHS also rings clear.

A JAM-MAKER’S GUIDE TO SELF-PRESERVATION, MDs Medical Revue, 8 & 10-15 August. Wheelchair Access and Level Access available. https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/jam-maker-s-guide-to-self-preservation

Day in the Life of NHS – BBC Documentary (2013): http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01rn7pp

Other work about NHS at the Fringe :https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/nhs-don-t-ask-it-s-private

NOT DISABLED… ENOUGH // Romina Puma

For Romina Puma, as for many people who engage with medical and social models of disability on a regular basis, the question of ‘proof’ remains nagging: assessments for disability benefits are increasingly scrutinised, certain resources are only available to patients with certain kinds of cancer, and there are forever competitions which praise the supersurvivor or supercrip while denigrating those who are unable to inspire with their narratives. Puma’s stand up comedy act guides the audience through her journey with a Muscular Dystrophy diagnosis, particularly as Puma fails to ‘fit in’ to the limited discourses on disability currently available.  There are, thankfully, a number of great comics who look at disability and intersectional identities (Maysoon Zayid for example, who talks beautifully about being both disabled and Palestinian), and Puma covers some of the more challenging topics, such as sex and drugs (and how Viagra is seemingly a cure for MD-related exhaustion) which adds important examples of how these questions are negotiated not only by disabled people, but by those around them.

Carrie Sandahl and Philip Auslander’s book – Bodies in Commotion – as well as Rosemarie Garland Thomson’s Staring are great reads for further consideration on how many disabled individuals see themselves and how they are seen in public space. Puma’s work adds a unique and challenging dimension to this canon – bodies with degenerative illnesses are often not looked at in depth as they often engage more with medical lenses of disability than the more acceptable social model. As her doctor tells Puma, after revealing that there is no cure for Muscular Dystrophy and that the condition is degenerative: “If anything comes up, I’ll call you.” This rarely heard voice and perspective necessarily adds depth to a rich body of discourse on health, disability and dignity.

NOT DISABLED ENOUGH Romina Puma, Laughing Horse @ The Three Sisters, 7-30 August, FREE. Wheelchair Access, Level Access, Wheelchair Accessible Toilets. 

Link to Romani Puma’s show:https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on#q=%22Not%20Disabled...%20Enough!%22

TED talk with Maysoon Zayid:   https://www.ted.com/talks/maysoon_zayid_i_got_99_problems_palsy_is_just_one?language=en

Rosemarie Garland-Thomson’s work Staring: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jALsDVW63wo

On Disability Benefits and ‘Proof’: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/disabled-people-are-trapped-in-assessment-nightmare-by-benefits-regime-says-dr-stephen-duckworth-9272423.html

I AM BEAST // Sparkle and Dark

Comic books, graphic novels, videogames and animated films have always been serious business, from Magneto’s origin as a Holocaust survivor, to Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home. Even Godzilla was originally conceived of as the byproduct of nuclear warfare.

In I AM BEAST, Sparkle and Dark (one of our Partners in Sickness and Health) demonstrate the capacity of our imagination to provide an important mirror to our reality, no more how difficult it appears to be. I AM BEAST is a tale of bereavement, in which a girl, Ellie, and her father do their best to avoid talking about their respective grief, and Ellie regularly escapes into a world of comic books, where her sadness can take on an active (and aggressive) quality, and she can intervene in the helplessness which comes from serious grief. The reflection on bereavement and on (lacking) communication is powerful, with the young girl feeling the pressure to be ‘fixed’ and being unable to see anything other than the fact that the cure to her sadness (ie, the continued life of her mother) is an impossibility. With so little ordinary writing on death and dying (particularly from the perspective of children), the fact that Sparkle and Dark choose to engage with the aesthetic of comic book is noteworthy, particularly because it demonstrates the heightened or strained reality which is lived by those experiencing trauma.

I AM BEAST’s coverage of bereavement is quite extensive, and looks at the state from many angles – including guilt, blame, anger and silence – without placing things chronologically or conveniently. Instead of happily coming together with sadness being nicely incorporated into a person’s narrative of growth (as so annoyingly happened with The Last Tango in Halifax this year), in the end of I AM BEAST, the audience is still unsure how long this grief might last. As a person who has experienced significant grief myself, this lack of easy ending is probably the work’s most psychologically salient and relevant feature. (BL) 

I AM BEAST, Sparkle and Dark, 6-31 August, Pleasance Dome Above (Venue 33) Please check accessibility with venue.

More on Sparkle and Dark:http://www.sparkleanddark.com/#!

http://thesickofthefringe.com/partners

Winston’s Wish (UK’s largest children’s bereavement charity): http://winstonswish.org.uk/

Hannah Eaton’s Naming Monsters (fastastic graphic novel on bereaved young adults: http://forbookssake.net/2013/10/07/naming-monsters-hannah-eaton/

DAS ORGIEN MYSTERIEN THEATER // Hermann Nitsch

Hermann Nitsch’s work is famous (or infamous) for its bloody, gruesome, and intensive processes – the carcasses of cows paraded through streets, the nudity, and crowds and crowds of spectators which mix quite spectacularly with performers. Summerhall’s three-room exhibition of documentation of Nitsch’s work looks both critically and lovingly at the challenging work which is based on orgiastic and bacchanalian ritual.

By viewing the body, and all of its parts, as a tool for expression, Nitsch’s work has always harkened back audiences to the gruesomeness of medical and religious history, which was as bloody and horrifying as it was searching and curious. With the addition of Nitsch’s tools for performance – presented quite clinically and with precision – viewers can understand a method to the mess, and the work will be of interest to those interested in body-based performance practice (like that of jamie lewis hadley, Kira O’Reilly or Ron Athey) or those who have looked at their own bodies as specimens (a practice captured by Clod Ensemble’s Under Glass previously, and explored in Gianna Bouchard’s research on medical history). The work can be challenging to look at, and perhaps not for those with a weak stomach, but can be instructive and engaging for those interested in the blood and guts which are the stuff, the raw materials, of humanity. (BL) 

DAS ORGIEN MYSTERIEN THEATER, Hermann Nitsch, 5 August-5 October, Summerhall, Free Entry, Exhibition is on the Ground Floor

More about Hermann Nitsch: http://www.nitsch.org/index-en.html

More about jamie lewis hadley: http://www.jamielewishadley.com/

More about Clod Ensemble’s Under Glass: http://www.clodensemble.com/performance/underglass.htm

PORTRAIT // Rachael Ofori

Rachael Ofori’s multi-character examination of the lives of young black women is encapsulated in one of her central character’s first lines: “What do you see when you see me?” Portrait presents Ofori travelling through a number of quiet, peaceful reflections on body image, religion, education, class and, above all, the perception of black women in the media, to other black women, and to others. The format of the multi-character drama, championed by the likes of Anna Deavere Smith, Sarah Jones, Danny Hoch, and debbie tucker green – provides short case studies for any number of women who exist both as stereotypes/archetypes in society, and real women whose voices are often unheard. The format works to build empathy and to spend time with women in a private moment, a moment usually misunderstood by society at large.

One of the most striking aspects of Ofori’s performance is the way her voice switches between characters, alongside her physicality. While this is a trait of a great actor, it also resonates with how people negotiate the way their voice may or may not give them access to certain cultural capital. There has recently been a controversy over ‘gay voices’ with David Thorpe’s new documentary ‘Do I Sound Gay’ and a number of research studies and twitter responses. At the heart of the matter, and particularly relevant to Ofori’s work, is how the voice, and the control of the voice, is often a strategy (for better or for worse) that is taught, enforced and praised by some, reminding us of how inequitable a world is in which a certain tone of voice – be it black or gay or Northern or American (I often find that I use my more British accent on the phone when doing official business) – can so radically shift not only how we are perceived, but how we perceive others. This fascinating and difficult subject reminds us that we should not only be asked “What do you see when you see me?” but “What do you really hear when you hear me?” (BL) 

PORTRAIT, Rachael Ofori, Pleasance Dome 7-29 August. We are unsure of access to this theatre, please contact Pleasance directly. http://www.fueltheatre.com/projects/portrait

More about Rachael’s work: http://vilearts.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/portraying-dramaturgy-racheal-ofori.html

Other links that may be of interest: 

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jul/17/camp-the-voice-gay-rights

https://www.ted.com/talks/anna_deavere_smith_s_american_character