THE INEVITABLE HEARTBREAK OF GAVIN PLIMSOLE // SharkLegs

Few body parts are more engaged with (both literally and metaphorically), in theatre and literature, as the heart, and The Inevitable Heartbreak of Gavin Plimsole joins a healthy tradition of artwork in which heartbreak informs a medical heart condition, and in which a medical heart condition informs the story of a heartbreak. In TIHOGP, the audience follows Plimsole’s diagnosis of a serious heart condition caused from malformation, and follows him through informing friends and family, confronting the big questions of ‘Why Me?’ and confronting the uncomfortable reality that no one (not even a young man) is invincible.

The innovation with SharkLegs’ production however, expands both the metaphoric and literal questions of fate and our beating hearts, done by asking audience members to don a heart monitor, the readings of which are projected in the performance space, and which affect – Choose Your Own Adventure-like – the choices of the central character. While Plimsole’s central purpose is to ask audiences to confront their own mortality and their own sense of carpe diem (understood as both a point of inspiration and exasperation), he also thoughtfully shares his reality as a man with a chronic heart condition needing to make constant potentially-life-altering decisions about foods to eat/avoid and activities to do/avoid. For those who develop chronic conditions, the transition from an invincible body to one negotiating limitations can be challenging, as evidenced by Plimsole’s quite legitimate anger/conversations with God/attempts to reconcile past relationship. Reflecting on my own experience of writing about my illness many years ago, which I did in a series called BALL & Other Funny Stories About Cancer, I am quite moved by Plimsole’s honest anger and frustration on display.

By inviting the ever-changing heartbeats of the audience into the space as an essential set piece, The Inevitable Heartbreak of Gavin Plimsole asks audiences to reflect on the diversity of life and experience and how, despite us drinking energizing Redbulls or calming chamomile, our hearts and brains are still quite unpredictable – and this is a reality as horrifyingly frightening as it might be deliriously freeing. (BL)

The Inevitable Heartbreak of Gavin Plimsole is on at 13.40 at Pleasance Dome until August 29th (not 16th). Venue is wheelchair accessible, hearing loop available - https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/inevitable-heartbreak-of-gavin-plimsole

A few other projects on hearts, heartbeats and heartbreak:

Sheila Ghelani’s Covet Me Care for Me: http://www.sheilaghelani.co.uk/covet-me-care-for-me/

Ira Brand’s Keine Angst: http://www.irabrand.co.uk/?works=keine-angst

Marina Tsartsara and Miriam King’s work: http://marinatsartsara.weebly.com/blog

On Hubbub – A Wellcome Trust funded project, run by an interdisciplinary team looking at work, rest, noise, tumult: https://wellcome.ac.uk/press-release/exploration-rest-and-busyness-announced-first-project-hub-wellcome-collection

On Waiting for Diagnosis – Fuel’s While You Wait Series: http://www.fueltheatre.com/projects/while-you-wait

DECISION TIME // Juliette Burton

Juliette has a big decision to make. Should she marry the love of her life? But it’s not that simple.   Not only is he the love of her life, he is the reason she is still alive.

We are taken on a decision lead tour of Juliettes’ life which builds to the point where she is now. From her first experiences of otherness to the first point of her taking control in her life and her eating disorders, her dalliances with self harm to the critical moment where she has written the note, she has the knives and she’s ready for the final act.

This show is not about the philosophy of free will, causality or determinism. Kant and Spinoza don’t even enter the room. From the outset we explore the pathology of cognitive distortion. If we decide one way we may hurt, upset or knowingly please, we may experience guilt or pleasure, we may be loved more or rejected. Decision making can be fraught.

We are slowly exposed to some of Burtons’ psychiatric history, her diagnoses and symptoms. Her previous decisions and impulses take on a new gravitas. For most people certain decisions or actions are easy, for example getting out of bed is just something we do, an almost automatic process.

What if you are so depressed you are unable to get out of bed, clothe or feed yourself?  What if you are so gripped by anxiety, decision making becomes impossible? What if the only viable option feels like suicide? For some, there is no alternative, for some though at the crucial moment, almost in that final act they find a reason to survive, to sustain, to want to realise the potential of the most meaningful version of their life.

The ultimate choice we make maybe whether to live or die, to kill ourselves or not. Suicide generally isn’t a laughing matter but Burton found her reason to live and the strength to share it. We are taken to the point under her bed where, with knife cutting flesh the phone rings, missed messages from her lover and the sound of the key in the door.

The awkward discomfort in the room is palpable, but it is a subject which needs discussing. In 2014 one person took their own life every 40 seconds. One in four will be affected by serious mental health issues in the coming year. The statistics are staggering yet we are still not addressing the issues. There is still a disparity between the funding and waiting lists of physical health and mental health services. The stigma of discussing mental health only compounds the impact on our wellbeing. It is definitely time to make a decision, as the mental health foundation say it’s ‘Time to Change’. (AM)

Juliette Burton: Decision Time is on at 16.30 at Gilded Balloon Teviot until 28th August (not 15th). Wheelchair Access, Level Access, Wheelchair Accessible Toilets - https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/juliette-burton-decision-time

Assisted Suicide: The Musical by Liz Carr premieres at Unlimited Festival at the Royal Festival Hall on September 10th and 11th: http://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/whatson/assisted-suicide-the-musical-97416

The Suicide by Suhayla El-Bushra, after Nikolai Erdman (1928), recently at the National Theatre: https://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/shows/the-suicide

Prevention of young suicide: https://www.papyrus-uk.org/

WE LIVE BY THE SEA // Patch of Blue

As I enter the theatre space and sit down a young woman asks ‘Who hasn't had their shoes touched?’ I raise my hand and the young woman scuttles into the row and touches both my shoes. This is Katy.

We Live by the Sea is a story where one of the people has autism but it is not about autism. This latest work by Patch of Blue Theatre Company weaves story and pathology without being definitive. It is a story of tenderness, hope, compassion, honesty and understanding.

Katy is diagnosed as being on the autistic spectrum. Her mother left the day she got diagnosed and her father left in search of ‘work’. This is a performance written as much in metaphor as the straight language of the everyday. It is a story of lost people looking for the things they lost, a girl with autism and her imaginary dog, her older sister Hannah and Ryan, a new boy in town escaping the city.

We are told Katy likes the truth and routines. We learn the days she has fish fingers for tea, Saturdays watching Ant and Dec, the colours assigned to each day and that she has a tank of sea water named Gerald, in fact all her possessions have names. Katy makes up stories to mediate the transitions through the moments in life and it becomes clear she has repetitive actions designed to self-soothe. Her imaginary dog Paul Williams helps her through difficulties and they share a secret language. She goes to mainstream school where she is bullied and lost her extra support due to funding cuts.

Hannah could have gone to university ‘if only things were different’. In this respect she is one of the many young people who have put others needs before their own. She is part of the estimated 350,000 young adult carers (18-24) in the UK. This number is steadily growing, with a significant burden falling on child carers, currently 166,000 in England alone. The impact of being a child and young adult carer can be wide reaching from being bullied, social isolation through to a lack of opportunities and poor health outcomes. Many young carers are not known to authorities.

Katy is unusual in that as a female she already has an Autistic Spectrum Disorder diagnosis at 15. Autism is a disorder with a perceived gender bias, in that more boys are diagnosed with it than girls. Whilst overall prevalence is increasing for both genders, more females are being diagnosed than ever before.

Historically women are often repeatedly misdiagnosed and mis-medicated before a successful diagnosis and treatment is employed. Part of the reason for this is the expectation of traditional societal gender roles and traits. However, psychiatrists were not necessarily looking for Autism so may have diagnosed, for example, the Eating Disorder manifest rather than the autism behind it. Finally women tend to be much higher functioning on the spectrum of the disorder, combined with a better propensity for ‘masking’ the disorder to ‘fit-in’ within the normative society. (AM)

We Live by the Sea is on at 16.30 at Pleasance Courtyard until August 29th. Wheelchair Access, Level Access, Hearing Loop, Wheelchair Accessible Toilets -  https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/we-live-by-the-sea

Gender and Autism: http://www.autism.org.uk/about/what-is/gender.aspx

Autism in Pink: http://www.specialneedsjungle.com/autism-in-pink-helping-to-identify-undiagnosed-girls-with-asd/

The Lost Girls: https://spectrumnews.org/features/deep-dive/the-lost-girls/

Young Carers: https://carers.org/about-caring

PEOPLE OF THE EYE // Deaf and Hearing Ensemble

Deaf and Hearing Ensemble’s first major Fringe production – The People of the Eye – is an exploration of the development of a deaf identity from a number of different perspectives: from a deaf child learning to deal with microaggressions, to a hearing sister’s struggle to understand how difference might affect a person’s access to opportunities, to a hearing mother struggling with the reality that their child will need to live in a world in which there are challenges.

By focusing on the perspective of a child growing up in a hearing world, it might be easy to dismiss the ignorant comments faced by the central characters as the ignorance of childhood bullies, but Deaf and Hearing Ensemble’s focus is sharp: although such idiocy from strangers towards children, of course, does exist, the microaggressions, the stupid things that are said, are not limited to child perpetrators. They use humour to make their point, but their look at the chasm between hearing and deaf culture is a sharp rebuke of the ‘kindness’ and ‘goodness’ enacted by so many hearing adults.

People of the Eye is an origin story – a look at how the identity of a deaf adult might be built through a personal medical history, family interaction, and their peer group over time – and the incorporation of family videos demonstrates a strong and moving desire to understand one’s past (and thus, one’s present). But the political is never far away – much like in Nina Raines’ 2010 play, Tribes, People of the Eye shows that brief moment where a doctor convinces a parent not to teach their child sign language, referencing their chances of being ‘normal’ as improved by lip reading. While Deaf and Hearing Ensemble drop the comment lightly, it – combined with thoughtful performances in BSL and English, and a good chunk of light ribbing at audience members’ ignorance of BSL – resonates deeply. As with Touretteshero’s Backstage in Biscuitland which you cannot watch without wanting every show in the future to be a relaxed performance – one leaves People of the Eye understanding not only how much they really should learn BSL (or even basic BSL) but about the culture difference which can possibly be breached with a bit of effort on the part of hearing adults. (BL)

People of the Eye is on at 13.00 at Northern Stage at Summerhall until 27th August (not 10th, 17th, 24th). Wheelchair Access, Level Access, Closed Caption, BSL - https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/people-of-the-eye

Francesca Ramsey on Microaggressions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPRA4g-3yEk

Touretteshero, Backstage in Biscuitland: http://www.touretteshero.com/2014/03/19/backstage-in-biscuit-land/

Nina Raines’ Tribes reviewed in The Telegraph http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/theatre-reviews/8078475/Tribes-Royal-Court-review.html

GUSSET GRIPPERS // Elaine Miller

Some shows are best defined by their audience. This is certainly true of Gusset Grippers, which combines the previously disparate forms of stand-up comedy and incontinence physiotherapy. Incontinence affects 1 in 3 women and 1 in 9 men, so it is likely that some, if not most, of the audience had first-hand experience. Laughter can lead to leakage if you have stress incontinence so given the hilarity throughout, some of us were probably experiencing it during the show itself.

The audience effectively had an hour-long consultation with physiotherapist Elaine Miller. Not the first health professional to go into comedy, she is unusual in using her routine to do her job. Unlike Harry Hill, who left medicine to become a comic, or even Phil Hammond, who remains a GP, Miller uses this show as explicit health promotion - with the emphasis on “explicit”.

Rather than invite audience questions, as was the case in Brian Lobel’s Sex, Cancer and Cocktails, for example, Miller grants us anonymity in this clinical encounter. No one has to share their story - through experience with clients and her own incontinence following the birth of her third child, she knows what we want to ask, why we didn’t go to the doctor, and what mistakes we will make learning the most effective treatment: pelvic floor exercises.

And with an anonymous group rather than an individual client, she is free to exploit every rude joke going about our most intimate body parts and functions. That must be why there was a hen party in on the night I was there. A few years ago, a show called Incontinental avoided “all the obvious and cheap jokes” around incontinence according to a review in Exeunt; by contrast, Miller’s frank descriptions of pish, poo, sex, birth and pelvic anatomy elicited constant laughs of embarrassment and recognition. Her approach is, in many ways, vulgar - in terms of her language, yes, but her directness and practicality as well.

Also in the audience were health professionals earning credits towards their continuing professional development (CPD). CPD helps practitioners like physios and doctors keep their skills and knowledge up to date, and each year they are required to do a certain amount of learning beyond their formal qualifications in order to stay registered with the General Medical Council or the Health and Care Professions Council. Miller's show qualifies as CPD because it is rigorously evidence-based, but she is interested in another type of evidence, too: by following up with consenting audience members, she will assess whether comedy really is an effective tool for health promotion. In this case, I really think it is. (MR)

Gusset Grippers is on at 18.00 until the 28th August (not 10th, 17th, 24th) at Woodland Creatures (Venue 282). https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/gusset-grippers

Find out more about Gusset Grippers and Elaine Miller online: http://www.gussetgrippers.co.uk/  

NHS Choices has somewhat drier information about incontinence: http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/incontinence-urinary/pages/introduction.aspx  

Dr Phil Hammond has two shows at the Fringe this year: http://www.drphilhammond.com/

Sex, Cancer and Cocktails, by The Sick of the Fringe’s very own Brian Lobel, is reviewed here: http://www.disabilityartsonline.org.uk/sick-festival-brian-lobel-sex-cancer-cocktails

Kazuko Hohki’s Incontinental was reviewed by Exeunt in 2012: http://exeuntmagazine.com/reviews/incontinental/

The Health and Care Professions Council explains continuing professional development (CPD) here: http://www.hcpc-uk.co.uk/registrants/cpd/

More about CPD for doctors from the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh: https://www.rcpe.ac.uk/education-support/cpd-scheme-guidance

THE BRAIN SHOW // Robert Newman

Robert Newman’s comedy routine in The Brain Show criticises research studies that he has encountered in popular science books about the brain and found wanting. He counters their arguments with a mixture of more robust science, appeals to common sense, and humour. The examples of “neurobabble” he uses in the show are not difficult to demolish, which means he does not have to get into scientific technicalities but can make his point before turning into a joke.

Neuroscience continues to be one of the areas of science most likely to be used and abused by people with something to sell, from self-help books to educational tools. It is often presented in a reductive way - “this part of your brain lights up when you're in love”. Newman’s debunking of specific studies challenges such a simplistic understanding of contemporary neuroscience. By deploying ‘common sense’ arguments, or returning to the 19th-century theories of Charles Darwin, however, he risks giving the impression that modern neuroscience is all on a par with the worst examples he can find.

Using brain imaging to ‘see’ what is going on in our heads is still a relatively young research discipline. While pioneering, it can also be speculative and open to criticism as researchers develop, challenge and hone their techniques. Debates around the application and interpretation of such studies have been going on - and increasing - within the field for many years.

The Brain Show encourages its audiences not to take at face value the claims made by and on behalf of neuroscientists. Those who are inspired not to dismiss neuroscience but to engage with it may also discover more of the best examples of the field, whether it's the growing use of brain imaging as a diagnostic tool or work informing and extending our knowledge of the anatomy of the brain. (MR)

The Brain Show is at 19:15 at Summerhall's Main Hall until the 28th August (not 15th) http://festival16.summerhall.co.uk/event/robert-newman-the-brain-show/

This recent Nature video discusses how brain maps are made, including a new one compiled using MRI data: http://www.nature.com/nature/videoarchive/brain-map/index.html

PET imaging is being used to visualise amyloid plaques, a sign of Alzheimer's disease: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/05/160524124241.htm

Quartz reports on flaws associated with functional MRI research in particular: http://qz.com/725746/a-deep-flaw-has-been-discovered-in-thousands-of-neuroscience-studies-so-why-arent-neuroscientists-freaking-out/

An older piece by Guy Kahane discusses the philosophical challenges brain imaging presents: http://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/2011/01/neurotrash-and-neurobabble/

This 2012 article in Nature set out issues around ‘blobology’ in MRI studies, and how researchers are making progress: http://www.nature.com/news/brain-imaging-fmri-2-0-1.10365

Debunking “neuromyths” in education: https://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/2016/feb/24/four-neuromyths-still-prevalent-in-schools-debunked

ADLER & GIBB // Tim Crouch and the Royal Court Theatre

Tim Crouch’s play Adler & Gibb looks centrally at society’s obsession with the story behind the story, showing something between an artist’s journey to understand her character and an invasive, even violent, emotional grave robbery. An actor, Louise, and her acting coach have come to the Grey-Gardens-inspired home of famed and reclusive artists Adler and Gibb, only to find the circumstances of their reclusion to be different then suspected. Louise is relentless – reminiscent of the portrayal of Capote in Miller’s 2006 film, waiting impatiently for his subject’s death to finish In Cold Blood – and a clear archetype for our obsession with celebrities (even hip, arty, off-kilter celebrities) and the expectations for all people to fully explain their comings and goings to just about everyone.

In his classic essay ‘The Death of the Author’ (1967), Barthes wrote about the problems inherent in allowing a writer’s autobiography to dictate how a piece of work is received by its audience. Such a practice exists today – we retrospectively diagnose Vincent Van Gogh or Chopin with any sort of mental health disorder, see Abraham Lincoln’s homosexuality in his policy decisions, we reread all of David Bowie’s final album as, exclusively, an extended pre-death ritual. Although such a practice might normalize different experiences through history – thus making new role models for us – there is also a danger in the disempowering idea that certain illnesses, lives, problems and struggles automatically lead to any number of specific outcomes. This is put into sharp relief in Adler & Gibb when Louise’s presumptions about the lives of her role models are discovered as wildly inaccurate.

 *Spoiler Alert. The following contains a spoiler for those yet to see the show, but the following is The Sick of the Fringe part*

When Louise realizes that her hero was not in fact in an abusive, reclusive relationship and, instead, someone slowly dying (perhaps of early-onset dementia, it’s not quite clear), the play resonates with the recent – and unexpected – deaths of David Bowie, Alan Rickman, Victoria Wood. But it is not only celebrities who sometimes crave privacy after the diagnosis of an illness; society’s inability to deal with bereavement, disability and difference in public space may make the withdrawal from public life by those dealing with illness themselves even more justified. The view that illness is something that one should be ashamed of, or the view that illness is something which burdens others, is individualistic and, in fact, ableist in its construction. While we don’t need to force Adler to share her illness with the public, we wish she would have known that we would support her however she needed. But then, of course, society has to do that work of not being ableist dicks…. And this might be a long time coming.  (BL)

Adler & Gibb, by Tim Crouch, 3-27 August (not 8, 15, 22), Summerhall, BSL interpreted shows available - https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/adler-gibb

In Theory – ‘The Death of the Author’ - https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2010/jan/13/death-of-the-author

Dr. Richard Kogan – Rachmaninoff and His Psychiatry - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pM097N2lNEI

On Capote and In Cold Blood - http://ocbookshoppe.com/blog/the-legacy-of-truman-capote/

David Bowie’s Death Is A Reminder of the Sanctity of a Private Life - http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/01/david-bowies-dignified-death-is-a-reminder-of-the-sanctity-of-private-life/

RSA Animates: Barbara Ehrenreich’s Smile or Die - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5um8QWWRvo

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

MINERVA SCIENTIFICA - MIRIAM ROTHSCHILD Electric Voice Theatre

Part talk, part research project, part contemporary music performance, Minerva Scientifica – Miriam Rothschild begins by posing the following question: how many female scientists and composers can you name? The answer, unfortunately, appears to be not too many. This quick piece of research (conducted there and then between those present) frames the following hour as urgent and essential viewing. The audience learn about the eminent entomologist Miriam Rothschild and her important research into fleas, her later work on wildflowers/the garden and her championing of animals and insects as equals. Initially the audience is introduced to her life and work anecdotally and through interview (there is a singer, a composer and an entomologist on stage). Then a composition of around thirty minutes is shared. The libretto of this is made up of words taken from Miriam Rothschild’s written works and is accompanied by the composer (now dressed as a flea) on bass clarinet. Before leaving the space everyone present is informally invited to look at a real flea through a microscope and also given some Miriam Rothschild recommended reading.

Minerva Scientifica is an evolving music-theatre programme reflecting the loves and works of British Women Scientists, told through the music of British Women Composers.

The project has resonances with the largely forgotten female naturalist Elizabeth Brightwen’s story, who was also an advocate of treating animals and insects with respect, recently captured in Rambles with Nature. (SG)

MINERVA SCIENTIFICA – MIRIAM ROTHSCHILD, Electric Voice Theatre, Valvona & Crolla (Venue 67). Other performances focusing on different women scientists continue until August 23rd. Hearing Loop available, Wheelchair Accessible toilets. May not apply to all performances, please contact venue for full accessibility details.                                   https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/minerva-scientifica-miriam-rothschild

Miriam Rothschild: http://www.theguardian.com/news/2005/jan/22/guardianobituaries.obituaries

Sheila Ghelani, Rambles with Nature – Ramble 1, a series of cine-poems in collaboration with straybird, is at Forest Fringe until August 30th.                        http://www.sheilaghelani.co.uk/rambles-with-nature/       http://forestfringe.co.uk/edinburgh2015/artists/sheila-ghelani-with-straybird/

Shit Theatre’s show Women’s Hour investigates women and feminism http://www.shittheatre.co.uk/womens-hour.html

The invisibility of females within ‘the canon’ is not only true in science but also artists. See Brown Council’s Remembering Barbara Cleveland:                 http://browncouncil.com/works/remembering-barbara-cleveland#1

New Scientist articles about 10 female scientists we should all know: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/ten-historic-female-scientists-you-should-know-84028788/?no-ist

LEGGOLAND Colin Leggo

Leggoland is the comedic retelling of the story of Colin Leggo’s right leg: broken multiple times in his youth, rendered almost unusable for ten years of his adulthood, finally amputated last year, and now, as he puts it, ‘probably in a bin somewhere.’ Leggo’s narrative offers a personalised critique of both tabloid pre-occupation with different bodies, obsessively fetishising ‘abnormality’, and how we think about our connection to our own limbs. 

As a comedian ‘always looking for the funny side’, Leggo has taken advantage of our society’s problematic fascination with the amputee, selling photos to coffee-table magazines under various ridiculous pseudo-stories. He tells Full House how his leg became infected after being ‘attacked by a drunk badger’ – double-page spread, and he pockets £150. We laugh at Leggo’s mockery of the tragic-disfigurement, sob-story trope, but his critique is more than just a comedian putting on a brave face for the sake of material. Leggoland genuinely works to frame Leggo’s story as a happy one, questioning stereotypical notions of disability. His damaged leg, requiring multiple operations, a painful Ilizarov frame, and hindering his career and social life for over a decade, rendered him far more ‘disabled’ than his present life as a below-the-knee amputee. There is no love lost between Colin and his leg, no long goodbyes: the most distress in his narrative comes from his operation being postponed three times.

Leggoland raises many questions about our relationships with our bodies; Leggo’s case, at least, does not fit easily within categories of ‘able-bodied’ and ‘disability’, as well as defying the idea of amputation as purely loss, rather than gain. (HM)

LEGGOLAND, Colin Leggo, The Blind Poet, until August 30th.  Please contact venue for accessibility details.

https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/leggoland

More on Colin Leggo:

http://www.colinleggo.com/

https://www.youtube.com/user/ColinLeggo

Jemima Kiss in The Guardian on how artificial limb technology is changing our relationship with amputeeism.

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/apr/09/disability-amputees-bionics-hugh-herr-super-prostheses

Oliver Sacks A Leg To Stand On offers a fascinating exploration of our sense of ‘ownership’ of our limbs, and his personal experience of losing that sense:

http://www.oliversacks.com/books-by-oliver-sacks/leg-stand/

Stelarc, performance artist working with the ‘amplification’ of the body, inc. prosthetics, cyborgism, mechanisation and implant

http://stelarc.org/_.swf

Abnormally Funny People, group of comedians challenging perceptions of disability and ableist attitudes:

www.abnormallyfunnypeople.com

AM I DEAD YET? Unlimited Theatre

How do you get people to talk about death and dying? Can exploring the science of death and thinking about the future of death, when death might no longer exist, provide a starting point? 

Whilst science fiction, from Dracula to Frankenstein to The Lazarus Effect, has covered such ground before, Am I Dead Yet? is inspired by the biomedical idea that 'death is not a fixed moment in time but a process that can be reversed'. 

Whilst the eye, hand and electrograph might sense, clinical death (the cessation of the heartbeat, breathing and brain function), biological death, occurs later and is visible at a microscopic level, when cells deprived of oxygen, stop functioning and begin to breakdown. Indeed biological cell death is happening in all of us, all of the time - old cells must die to make room for newer, healthier ones. This carefully orchestrated process is called programmed cell death or, cell suicide, and is a natural part of our bodies' everyday lives. 

The show's creators worked closely with Dr Andy Lockey, whose passion 'to prevent premature and untimely death' informs the show, and upfronts some of these science death facts. The Wellcome Trust, who supported the development of the show, hosted their own death exhibition exploring objects, artefacts and death rituals 'to open a window upon our enduring desire to make peace with death. Am I Dead Yet? makes light of the grim topic. A pre-show gambit, which invites us to write about our own death, is quickly dispelled as the show sparks to life and riffs off staying alive with a comedic stint featuring both performers singing in their underpants. 

These two ambulance men, one older, one novice, share stories of death and invite us to entertain the idea of death being part of everyday life. Called to a railway line, they search for body parts at the site of a suicide and, later, re-count how a cold body, a frozen body, helps to slow biological death and make it easier to bring someone back to life hours after their clinical death. A woman trained in giving cardiopulmonary resuscitation or CPR is invited to take centre stage to show us how it's done... on a dummy of course. 

Whilst thoughts of death and dying are held at bay by the scientific and comedic angle, you will leave the show singing about death. And, in fleetingly speculating on life without death, the show opens the door, albeit ajar, to the euthanasia and the 'right to die' debate. Prising this door open a little further, there is certainly room to deepen this topic, scientifically or otherwise, by connecting it to Disability politics. Liz Carr, actor, comedian and disability rights campaigner is a member of Not Dead Yet and speaks out against assisted suicide. Timely, as, this September, legislation that would give terminally ill patients the right to die is to be debated in the House of Commons; legislation that Not Dead Yet seeks to oppose. 

Whilst Liz Carr features at a main #TSOTF event to posit her provocation, 'Rather Dead Than Disabled', the creators of Am I Dead Yet? have created room for further exploration by hosting a Death Cafe, where audiences, 'often strangers, gather to eat cake and discuss death'. 

Indeed, in recent years, death becomes the Fringe, as it features in a series of shows under the banner 'Death and the Fringe'. 

And, there is much more to talk about! (EO) 

AM I DEAD YET, Unlimited Theatre, 19-30 August (various), Traverse Theatre. 

Venue is wheelchair accessible. https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/am-i-dead-yet

Access Performances: British Sign Language - Fri 28 Aug, 11.15pm 

Death on The Fringe 

https://deathonthefringe.wordpress.com   

Wellcome Collection, Death exhibition 

http://wellcomecollection.org/death  

Guardian Review 

http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2015/aug/20/am-i-dead-yet-at-edinburgh-festival-review-mortality-bites

A Code of Practice for the Diagnosis and Confirmation of Death http://bit.ly/1U5AIJW 

The AWARE study exploring the relationship between mind and brain during clinical death: http://bit.ly/1sj0zEk

Liz Carr 

http://weareunlimited.org.uk/commission/liz-carr/ 

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

Not Dead Yet 

http://www.notdeadyetuk.org/notdeadyet-news.html

Dying Matters dyingmatters.org

NHS guidelines on how to perform CPR: bit.ly/cprnhs

MANWATCHING Anonymous

The promise of anonymity has always been essential to medical and social science research, recognising the often-sensitive and invasive nature of questions asked of subjects whose life experiences (and often traumas) are being recorded and annotated for the benefit of society. In Manwatching, a work-in-progress monologue, written by an anonymous woman, and performed by an unprepared male comic (who receives the script live on stage), anonymity serves a number of functions. At first glance, the anonymity of the female writer protects her from being identified with the sensitive subject matter (female sexuality, masturbation and the darkness of sexual fantasies), but very quickly extends into a much more politically potent intervention: it matters less who the author is, and matters more that any woman telling this story would be less considered than a man telling the same story. Armed with some recent research that demonstrates how women’s voices are less heard than men’s (which seems quite unsurprising but still unsettling), Manwatching extends to a conversation about science and medicine not only because of its meditation on female sexuality and female sexual behaviour, but because it reminds us to be critical of the sources that we listen to, trust, and where bias might be hidden. 

The world of science and research is laden with double blind studies and peer reviewed journals, but which voices are silenced, and if one voice doesn’t make it through these extensive processes for any reason, should they be discounted? Of course, these processes are in place to avoid false reporting or unevidenced research, but we are still conditioned only to trust certain voices. Are they only using certain tones? Certain words? Spoken with certain accents? Manwatching challenges an audience to look at the message despite the messenger.

In terms of Manwatching’s take on female sexuality, the anonymous writer talks about the very real conflicts between sexual fantasy, a world dominated by misogynistic and violent pornography, and feminist movements, all of which put pressure on women in different ways. Coupled with society’s inability to talk about female pleasure and sexual habits – without instantly turning into a medical conversation (as just happened with the flibanserin controversy) – Manwatching follows in the footsteps of sexual health researchers (Masters & Johnson, Kinsey and more whose objects/research are currently exhibited at the Wellcome’s 'Institute of Sexology', and also discussed in Masters of Sex with Lizzie Caplan) who have tried to open up conversations about sex and, particularly, female sexuality, in hopes of making the world a place where pleasure is accessed more equitably. (BL)

MANWATCHING

anonymous

Earlier/Later, programmed by Paines Plough

10-21 August (various dates)

Venue is wheelchair accessible, please confirm other access needs with venue.

http://festival15.summerhall.co.uk/event/manwatching/

Voices of men 

http://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2012/12/why-we-prefer-masculine-voices-even-in-women/266350/

On Flibanserin, and recent controversy

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-33984472

Wellcome Collection’s Institute of Sexology

http://wellcomecollection.org/exhibitions/institute-sexology?gclid=CJCB3YuEuscCFVRsGwodTLcLCw

Masters of Sex

http://www.rollingstone.com/tv/pictures/inside-lizzy-caplans-personal-masters-of-sex-tour-20150709

On Tearoom Trade and controversial ethics of ‘anonymous’ sex research

http://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/abs/10.1108/01443330410790858