Revised video at the end

This is the only video that I will be playing at the end of my performance. It was decided that Spasticus Autisticus seemed too offensive and contradictory to the rest of the performance, and having no music made the slideshow seem soppy and self-indulgent, so I have decided to simply have a thank you from Paul at the end of the performance.

Revised script

As you can see from the new script below, there is a slight change in structure, but the additions/cuts are not too drastic, they simply shorten the train scene and include more information about the staging/actions, whilst some of the script has been re-written or cut.

Have you ever done something you know you shouldn’t?

Stand up/comedy routine style.

Have you ever done something you know you shouldn’t?  We all do it, I do it all the time. The first time I realised I was doing something I shouldn’t happened at when I was at school. I was sitting in an assembly, you know what it’s like, the person at the front is banging on about something and you’re bored when suddenly, out of nowhere, this voice pops into my head and says ‘what’s to stop me from saying something or shouting out loud? Nothing.’ I don’t have turrets or anything, but it kind of feels that way. The more I think about trying to ignore it, the worse the gremlin in my head gets. ‘Shout something rude’ says the gremlin who’s trying to take over all rational thought. I don’t want to shout anything rude. ‘Well just shout something. Anything. What’s stopping you? Do it. Go on, shout say something, anything.’ No. I don’t want to. ‘Do it, go on do it shout something rude, or say something, anything...’ SHEEP! I didn’t actually shout anything, I’ve managed to get the gremlin under control so far.

He doesn’t come into my head all the time, but when he does it’s like a war going on inside my head! I’d like to say it’s like having that heaven and hell angel on my shoulders, but it’s not quite as religious. Then I realised what it was after reading the book, have you ever read Jekyll and Hyde? Well it’s Hyde who is trying to get into my head, the repressed person im trying to conceal is trying to get out and have a voice. Sometimes he disguises himself as rational thought, or a good idea, and I have to try and see through his disguise. It comes into my head at the most random times, like when I’m watching a really bad play and I’m bored. Out of the blue he creeps into my brain and I’m fighting it again, but it gets harder to fight him the more I deny him.

An example is when I went to Paris, I’ve only ever been once and I did the Eiffel tower. I don’t like heights at the best of times, but I went right to the top, and the view was gorgeous. But he turned up and made me think, yeah, I can scale that fence, jump over. Jump off the Eiffel Tower!? It’s like at the top of the cliff, I don’t want to die, I just want to jump off. Hell, I’m not suicidal, I just want to jump off to see what it feels like.

But I’ve discovered that if let Hyde win now and again, it is easier to keep him under control. So I let him win on the small things so I don’t go jumping off of cliffs or shouting Bomb on a plane but...

The most recent time I let Hyde win was, do you know when you get cold callers? Well I kept getting the same company phoning me every day. They were selling me the most expensive and fancy conservatory ever, so I managed to keep the woman talking for just under an hour, expressing my interest in oak frames and double glazing with venetian blinds. She even had me interested in a solar panel. I could almost hear the pound signs ringing in her eyes on the other end of the phone. But she didn’t find it amusing when I asked her if they fit them to second floor flats!

Another time was last Christmas. Do you remember we had all that snow? Everywhere in England had this much snow and managed to keep things moving but London had this much and came to a standstill. Well I was going home for Christmas on the train and because of the snow there were only 4 trains running that day. I managed to get on one, it was busy! I got a seat but I felt guilty because I noticed there were people in the compartments between the trains, so I offered my seat to an elderly lady, that’s right, I’m something of a gentleman. Ladies, form an orderly queue! So I was stood for most of the journey.

Then as we set off this family about 12 comes from the other carriage. I thought they were looking for empty seats, but they had found their ticketed seats and started demanding people sat in them move. I wouldn’t have minded but the guy who seemed to be in charge was a dick. These were proper upper middle class people with double barrelled surnames, called Tarquin, Humphrey, Penelope and Felicity. I thought, yeah, let the kids sit down but don’t demand your seats, we’re all on the same journey and you’re carting some old people out of their seats, stand for a bit you lazy sod! But no, the old people went off to find other seats and they got their seats imitating posh voice ‘that we have reserved so we fully expect to sit in them.’ They had 3 empty seats so I asked if they’d give them up because there are old people without seats. They said ‘we have booked these seats so we shall use them as we see fit.’

Just before I got off the train I saw Humphrey put his Ipad at the top of his suitcase. It was in a soft case, it was right next to me. All I had to do was open the zip and slide it out, nobody would notice. It would teach him a lesson. And I really wanted an Ipad. Then I realised that if I had the ipad I might end up as upper class and snobby as he is so when I pulled mine from the top shelf, Hyde ‘accidentally’ dropped my suitcase onto where his ipad was. Oops!

But I learnt the hard way that if I repress Hyde for too long, well, that’s what brings me to where I am now.

I’d been on a night out with the lads. Nothing special, just a night out with the vague hope that I might get lucky and end up in a different bed to my own. And as a result of that night I’m here.

Sat behind a desk. Serious, NOT stand-up anymore.

Chetwynd. C-H-E-T-W-Y-N-D. Pause

Andrew. Pause

16, look why am I even....?.... 16 november 1987. Pause

 47 Ramsgate, Louth, Lincolnshire, LN110NF. Pause

Yes. Pause

Yes. Pause

What? Of course not. Pause. Why the hell do you think!? I’ve already told you! Pause. Yes.

Pause What!? What!? You’re going to charge me with racial abuse after everything he’s done!?  What that man has gotten away with? He’s.....well you should have....that man was supposed to be locked away for....

Pause  Well when the fucker gets out of hospital you can ask why I put him in there! Flip table in absolute anger and frustration

Back to the comedy routine/stand-up Style

One of my earliest memories is of my mum crying. She came to an assembly when I was about 4 for all the mums and dads to watch. All the kids took it in turns to say what they wanted if they had one wish. They all said in a mocking childs voice ‘I want to be a popstar’, ‘I want to be a footballers’ or ‘I want to be princess Barbie’, and all the parents would say imitating hysterical mum ‘Aaaw, thats my little girl’ or Imitating overly macho dad ‘Go on son, we’ll make a Wayne Rooney out of you my boy!’ You know what I wished for that made mum cry? And you know what I wished for every birthday and Christmas since I remember? For my brother to be able to walk, and to get better.

Dance imitating someone who has very little control over their body and can only move when they physically place their limbs where they need to be.

It would make going on the Underground a lot easier. I wouldn’t have to translate for him so people can understand. I wouldn’t have to help him to the toilet. I might have been an uncle. Stops dance but falls gradually to the floor to end up on knees. Spotlight again.

 Apparently I called the guy a nigger. Now I know you’re sitting there thinking that I’m a bad person for using the N-word. But honestly, I don’t remember much of what happened that night. I barely drank anything, so I wasn’t under the influence. The last thing I remember was seeing his face jeering and laughing at me from the other side of the room. Then something took over me. I thought I’d got rid of Hyde for good, but he’d just been sitting there waiting for the right moment and this was it...

Dance interpretation of assault with loud music behind (Between Stars by Underworld (DeaDawn remix)). During this the speech is interrupted by a 16 beat dance routine that is repeated. He was standing there. How did he have the cheek? He knew who I was when he saw me. And he laughed. He just laughed and asked how my brother was. This man should be behind bars, but he got let off because of lack of evidence. Dance. He had gotten away with raping and sexually abusing my disabled brother when he was supposed to be his fucking carer. His favourite place was when he took Paul swimming. My brother has cerebral palsy. He’s a retard. A crip. A dowy. A spaz. A tool. A drooler. So when I warned him to leave and he laughed at me and called me a spastic, I took a step back and let Hyde have nine rounds in the ring. And he fucking relished it. Dance. Hyde had free reign for the first time and he took full advantage of it. I don’t know why it’s called a red mist descending, its more like blind fury and hatred. Hyde was pure evil, like the devil himself had taken over my body. Every offensive word I’d ignored had come back with a kick and a punch and a bite and a scratch. This is from the retards of the world. This is for the spastics and the dowies and the spackers and the crips.

Stop music and the dance.

So forgive me if i’m a little touchy when it comes to disabled discrimination. Someone told me off for being so offended by the word spastic, sure imitating voice ‘disabled discrimination doesn’t happen that much anymore’. But neither does racism and there’s still massive hang ups about that. That’s why I called the guy a nigger. I’m not a racist, but I knew that I could get a reaction out of him that was the same for me with Spastic or Retard. If my brother was born 40 years ago he’d have been locked away because of who he is. Would you? And he can’t stand up and defend himself in the same way you can if someone is racist to you in the street. Move chair and pick up beer. Sits on chair and downs beer, acting very drunk and falling to the floor. Barely in control of your own body, slurred speech and a brain that hardly functions....  Sobers up. That’s what he feels like all the time.

I hate the way you talk sometimes,

Your speech is always slurred.

I hate the way you crawl around,

I hate that you can’t learn.

I hate your stupid special boots,

Why can’t you just be fine?

I hate it when you look at me,

Like all the fault is mine.

I hate that all the lights are on

But there’s no-one in upstairs

I hate that you’ll spend all your life

Stuck in that wheelchair

I hate when people stare at you,

I hate you can’t be fixed.

By pills or treatment or voodoo shit

My god I get so pissed

I hate though you’re the oldest,

That I look after you.

Sometimes I just can’t bear it but

I know this much is true,

I hate it when I’m not around

For you my brother Paul

But mostly I hate the way I don’t hate you,
not even close…
not even a little bit…
not even at all.

Video of Paul saying thank you.

The changed/new song for the dance routine

This is the replacement song for the dance routine. Just the song is used, not the actual video, and this one is being used because Moaner was too repetitive and monotonous and Beautiful Burnout was scrapped completely as the music took the focus away from the disabled dance.

A spider diagram of items that influenced my performance

This spider diagram uses the same pictures as with the long list of influences below, it is just a simpler way of visually representing everything that influenced my performance and how they all link together (though I have only included the main links because it would look a scribbling mess if I made every link that I listed in the last post). It may need to be zoomed in on to look at properly.

Inspiration for my Solo Performance and where it came from

Photograph Story Exercise

Some feedback from this was how the audience enjoyed hearing about the surroundings and how descriptive it was, they could imagine themselves there. I used this in the stand-up section especially, like the conservatory and the train stories, and again with the assembly/Paris stories. I want the audience to imagine they are there with me. I have also tried to keep the comedy elements from the photograph exercise.

Types of Solo Performance

From this list I have highlighted the types of solo performance that are present in my piece, for example, stand-up/comedy routine, monologue, music (in the dance), poetry/rap (10 things I hate poem), Dance and physical theatre, autobiographical writing (the whole piece is based on this), storytelling, multiple characters/persona (Hyde, the children and parents at the assembly, the Scotsman, the Londoner, the snob family) and interview (police interview).

O’Donnell - A Suicide Site Guide To The City.

I have used, like O’Donnell, simple props and costume, set, sound and lights, direct address to the audience in acknowledging their presence, multiple characters, dark and controversial alongside light hearted comedy

Birbiglia, M. (2010). Sleepwalk with Me: and Other Painfully True Stories

Like Birbiglia’s piece, mine has an autobiographical account of childhood and adolescence, but looks at the inner person we all have waiting and wanting to come out. I have also used, like Birbiglia, circumstances we have all found ourselves in, like on trains, cliffs and cold callers. Like Birbiglia my story is highly personal to me and deals with dark material that is potentially depressing and controversial.

Thank you Speech

From the feedback from this I have developed it for my final performance, I will not use a stool for the stand-up, I will keep the cynical sarcasm and expand on the private jokes, and pause more between jokes.

Anna Deavere Smith

Like Smith’s use of verbatim/documentary style of performance  I have talked to people about living with disabiities to develop my work.

Danny Hoch

Hoch’s plays deal with the repressed peoplewho live with discrimination. This is where I got my first ideas for my piece and it too deals with people, specifically my brother, who is repressed and disabled.

Eric Bogosian

Sex, Drugs, Rock and Roll deals with someone in a dark place, and also questions what is right and wrong with society. These elements are included within my performance, a time when I was in a dark place when I got into a fight over my disabled brother, as well as my piece questioning the casual use of ‘retard’ and ‘spastic’ in society.

Kalb, Documentary Solo Performance: The Politics of the Mirrored Self.

Kalb says that Solo Performance has a tendency to be self-indulgent. This is something I know my piece could easily become, which is why it is a series of short scenes interspersed with comedy because I don’t want it to become a lecture on disability. I try to make the audience question their role in society with regards to disability and to create empathy too. Kalb says that you have to play all characters, even the bad ones, and this is what I do by playing the Hyde character who is racist, violent and aggressive.

Dolan, Performance, Utopia and the Utopian Performative

Dolan discusses performance as having the potential to change people’s attitudes and behaviour, and this is what I look to achieve. If I can make just one person in the audience stop using ‘retard’ or ‘spastic’ as a derogatory term then I will have started at least the ‘utopia’ that Dolan strives for. However, I compare disabled insults to racist insults to give it some perspective and to show that neither is better or worse, both are equally as hurtful.

Spalding Gray

Gray works by regurgitating notes and he admits the slightly taboo habits like drugs. I use a few more props than Gray but it is to the same effect, to tell the audience a story from my life. Like Gray’s brutal honesty, I too reveal that I have used racist words even though it is controversial. However, I undermine the use of racist comments by the context, I called somebody this to get a reaction similar to my own reaction to ‘retard’. The recipient also happens to be a child rapist, therefore the use of racial slurring is undermined by a worse offense. Racism in this case is the lesser of two evils.

Andy Kaufman

Kaufman’s alter-ego Tony Clifton gave me the idea to involve an alter-ego or the repressed gremlin who lives inside my head that rarely pops up, but when he does I have to fight him so that I don’t shout rude words or do bad things.

Lenny Bruce

Bruce’s How To Talk Dirty and Influence People uses stereotypical characters, something I have tried to replicate in the stand-up sections, all the different characters are stereotypes. Bruce’s Off Broadway controversially looks at the word ‘nigger’ and why it is racist. Like Bruce, I ask this question but alongside the use of ‘retard’ and ‘spastic’ to show that it is unacceptable and hypocritical to use one but be offended by the other.

Heddon, Beyond the Self: Autobiography as Dialogue

I have been very careful during the devising process to stay away from the ‘me-machine’ type of solo autobiographical performance that Heddon discusses. I got rid of some of my initial ideas because I realised they were too close to the egotistical performances Heddon despises. For example, an initial idea for my piece was to base it on a recent relationship break up, but this would be too sefl-indulgent, so was scrapped. I also scrapped the slideshow at the end of my performance because it seemed too ‘soppy’, emotional and self-indulgent.

Brenda Wong Aoki

Like in Aoki’s Random Acts- To Fa, Lia my piece deals with the emotions that we leave hidden and under the surface. Aoki’s piece is about how these emotions arise at a funeral, whereas mine is about how the repressed come out when I am pushed over the line, when I snap and cannot hold it in any longer.

Guillermo Gomez-Pena

Like Gomez-Pena, I tried to play on the audience’s preconceptions and assumptions. I do this in two ways, by juxtaposing comedy with rape and sexual abuse, and by seeming like I am a racist and therefore immoral person, but turn it around by justifying my comment s and behaviour in order to defend myself against a man who raped and sexually abuse my disabled brother. Like Gomez-Pena, I am not trying to be overtly controversial but aiming to create a potential ‘utopia’ by raising awareness of political issues within society.

Kuhnheim, Economy of performance: Gomez-Pena’s New World Border

Kuhnheim recognises Gomez-Pena’s use of non-chronological narrative as central to his work. In reaction to this, I changed my piece from chronological to non-chronological. I want to have the effect of making the audience question what was going on, for them to stay alert and shock them, and for the proverbial penny to drop and it make sense but right at the end.

Tim Miller

Miller’s work is about discrimination and mis-treatment of gay people, my piece is similar but I discuss the discrimination and mistreatment of disabled people, more specifically I question and challenge how somebody can get away with raping and sexually abusing a disabled boy because of lack of evidence.

Jeffries, Sophie Calle: stalker, stripper, sleeper, spy

Like Calle’s work, my own is autobiographical and raises issues around ethics and morals, not in the comedy/stand-up routine but in the fight scene, and the uses of ‘nigger’ and ‘retard’. Calle’s work has made me question whether to include full names of the people in my story. I’ve decided not to include full names because the subject matter is so controversial and disturbing

Documentary/Verbatim Theatre

Adverse Weather Protectors -  I enjoyed writing this piece based on lyrics from Snow Patrol, however it does not add anything to my solo performance subject so have not taken this any further. However, it did give me the idea of interviewing people who live with disabilities to hear the insiders story.

2-5 minute developed piece

Originally I had around nine stories included in this comedy routine, but only said 4 of them which came to 8 minutes, so I have cut half of the jokes and stories. It seems a shame to cut work I have developed but my solo performance is not just about comedy, the comedy is used as an introduction. I also had to cut the comedy section down to have time to juxtapose it with serious content.

Feedback from visiting practitioner Gemskii Rudd-Orthner

Gem has been an inspirational person to work with and I have used a lot of her feedback in the performance. I did not use the song Spasticus Autisticus that she suggested because it was deemed too offensive and I did not have enough time to explain why it wasn’t, nor did I use the slideshow at the end because it seemed too self-indulgent. However, I did use most of the feedback, such as having the attacker a black person and to call him a ‘nigger’ to show the same passion for disabled discrimination as racism. I have used this opportunity to defend myself as brother, defender and attacker and the anger, though offensive, is righteous and justified. I have balanced light and dark by including the stand-up at the beginning. I have included Paul’s thank you speech at the end, and the beer cans/drunk behaviour that is actually a disability, not drunken-ness. I have used elements from monologues Gem suggested I write, such as ‘I’m tired of...’, ‘Do you know what I wished for at 3?’ and ‘ If he could walk...’. I have also use the physicality and disability exercise using triggers to make my body move in isolation and only work when I physically put my arms/legs/head in those positions.

Spasticus Autisticus –By Ian Dury (and interview).

I found the interview very insightful and it explains Dury’s reasons for the song, however, the song was cut from the final script because I do not have time to explain why it is not, though it sounds, offensive. I would have like to have kept this song in, but I do not wish to ruin the last 9 minutes of performance about my sensitivity towards disabled discrimination by including this song, it seems contradictory to my performance.

Knots- Physical Theatre

This is a play I saw several years ago but has remained in my memory for the physicality and violence it portrays, especially in the cubicle section (pictured), and I have adapted some of the movements for my own performance.

Tim Minchin – Taboo Song

I have tried to copy Minchin’s work on preconceptions and preconceived views, which are then shown to be wrong. I have tried to do this by making myself seem to be violent, abusive and racist, but then justifying my actions to be the lesser of two evils.

Lee Evans

Evans is one of my favourite comedians for his use of multiple characters and accents. I have tried to incorporate this in the comedy sections, such as the voice of Hyde, the posh Tarquin, the angry Scotsman, the wimpy Londoner who can’t manage snow, as well as the school children and their overemotional parents.

Bo Burnham

Although I would love to have created a funny song in the style of Burnham, it would not fit in with the story of my performance, perhaps it might for the snow/train sketch, but it would take up too much time and detract from the serious political point of my performance.

DV8 To Be Straight With You

I have tried to use Verbatim/Documentary theatre in my piece that DV8 have used to create To Be Straight With You, and interviewing my mother about disabled discrimination, and included some of her words/sentences in the script, e.g. ‘it would make going on the underground easier.’

DV8 The Cost of Living

I was aware of this piece of theatre before Gem pointed it out to me and have tried to follow along similar lines to DV8 and dispel some of the myths about disability, to show what it is like to live with, and to include the offensive and abusive slang terms that discriminate against disabled people.

10 Things I Hate About You

I decide to write my own version of the poem because my piece has a lot of violence and aggression, and this piece offers an emotional side to disabled discrimination that is also present. This poem shows the affection as well as the frustration of living with someone who is disabled.

Gomez-Pena drinks hot sauce

Gomez-Pena shows his cultural identity by drinking hot sauce, and is something I am doing but with beer to show my own English culture. It also fits in with Gem’s feedback regarding drinking and seeming like I am drunk, but actually I am disabled.

If I had one wish/earliest memory

Written in response to Gem’s feedback, I have included this is my piece and added extra comedy to it. This short story offers a different side to disability than just discrimination.

I’m tired of...monologue/stimulus

Although I have not directly included this monologue, I have used parts of it in the poem and the dance/movement section. ‘I wish my brother could walk and was normal, it would make going to the toilet easier for him, I wouldn’t have to translate for him, and people wouldn’t stare so much...’

Frantic Assembly – Beautiful Burnout

A play I saw last summer in Edinburgh, it moved me because it is about boxing and a player gets brain damaged from a punch. I have tried to emulate some of the physical violence in my dance that was present in the play and the physical theatre.

Music

I was using Moaner but it was too monotonous, Beautiful Burnout was scrapped because it detracted from the dance, and Between Stars is used instead.

Hyde/Gremlin

The gremlin character was changed to Hyde from the book The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and the television series Jekyll because he is a universal character known by a lot of societies. Plus, he is more relevant as a repressed voice to escape, it also explain the violence and aggression because Hyde is evil.

Slideshow/Pictures

As I have mentioned, I have cut this down to just the video of my brother because the music is too offensive without being explained and seems to contradict my piece, and the pictures by themselves are too self-indulgent.