DV8 - To Be Straight With You

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_MiU6ucj60

DV8 is a theatre company that have produced a verbatim/documentary piece of theatre based on and around homosexuality and its perception in society. The piece utilises technology and music and shows how homosexuality is tolerated or not in different societies. This is what I am looking at with regards to disability and it has given me an idea to look at documentary theatre in my piece. I want to explore disability in my performance using the actual words and interviews that I intend to conduct.

Bo Burnham - Rapper and Wordsmith

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LzgYWCgkZk

I like both the humour in this video, as well as the word play Bo Burnham uses. I don't want to use the rap or the humour so much in my performance, but the play on words that he uses. I think that I can use this to make a point about disbailities and peoples perceptions of them.

Tim Minchin - Taboo Song

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZ9_Jba_PcY

This song works very well in comedy as it plays on our expectations and turns them on their head. The audience assumes he is talking about the racist word 'nigger', but he is actually playing on this assumption and reveals half way through that he is actually talking about the word 'ginger'. This is something I want to try and use in my piece if possible, I want to play on the audiences assumptions and talk about disability, but make it seem like I am talking about something else to begin with. However, I am not musically talented, so I will not be singing or playing like Tim Minchin does.

Lee Evans - Stand Up comedy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBnmPNozg9k

I love the physicality of Lee Evans. He impersonates characters really well, with different accents, voices, actions and gestures for every new character. But I also admire his observations. This is what makes him so funny, and is something that I want to use in the begining sectio of my piece. I want to use the same range of accents and voices, as well as develop my comic part so that it is just as physical as in this video.

Knots physical theatre dance

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I74MBor-roQ

I love this piece of dance. Especially the middle section when they are in their cubicles. There is a lot of anger and frustration within these dances and this is something I definately want to encorporate into my piece; wither the sense of being trapped inside a diabled persons body and not being able to escape, or the sense of anger and frustration that comes when experiencing discrimination. The music too is something that I want to consider very closely as it adds to the piece.

Ian Dury Interview about Spasticus Autisticus

I found the Interview below very insightful and am contmeplating putting some of it, or some of the script into my performance.


Transcribed interview with Ian Dury about his song Spasticus Autisticus. The video can be found on youtube URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSo9OErEmM4&feature=related

Presenter –  Ian Dury is with us today. His latest single is called Spasticus Autisticus, and has just been withdrawn after it failed to be played on radio stations because it was said to be in bad taste. Ian Dury, who was partly crippled after a childhood attack of Polio, wrote the song to mark the international year of the disabled. It seemed that some people found the lyrics offensive. I’ll be talking to him in a moment, but first, a little touch of the song...

Song Plays

Presenter – Ian Dury, when they wouldn’t play it on the radio as it were, were you very angry?

Dury – Well, it was a pre-empted anger in that I didn’t think they were gonna play it when I wrote it, so I was not surprised but still. I wrote it knowing that it really was gonna be blanked a bit

Presenter – But you wrote it obviously in all seriousness, were you not able to persuade any of them beforehand that maybe they should play it for obvious reasons?

Dury – Well on the single Bag, I wrote, I don’t think I’ve got one but on the single bag they’ve got on what’s supposed to be an explanatory note, which is about my tribe knowing no racial creed and pay no heed to such thing. It can be rich or poor, disablement can get anybody, and it was really about Spasticus being a slave who wished to be free. I put at the bottom ‘we too are determined to be free’ and the idea of Spasticus is based on a film called Spartacus which had Kirk Douglas in it. At the end bit they say ‘which one are you is Spartacus’ and he says ‘I’m Spartacus’, and they all go ‘I’m Spartacus’ and they hung everybody who confessed. And that’s really the theme of it. No, because an institution like the BBC or the IBA is institutionalised and I knew that and I really wrote it partly because of that.

Presenter - Have you met many people that actually would admit to you that actually they would be offended by the words, by the theme by the attitude of it all?

Drury – I’ve heard of a couple of people, and I’ve met in fact on a telephone programme in London last week, I met a disabled woman over the phone who was very offended by it. And my mother was very worried about it. We did a gig for MENCAP, which is a mental health charity organization, and we did a gig for that, and my mother was sitting next to a mother and a spastic child and she was very worried about the child being upset or even the other being upset. And I met a man from the Spastics association, the Spastic Society who was also quite upset. He thought I was exaggerating the negative aspect of being disabled. But I don’t think he was right. And I think that the radical, so called radical, spastic societies and theatre groups so far have all been very glad I wrote it. And they say that they’re proud of it. It’s not just about spastics, it’s about every...I wrote the words Spasticus Autisticus cos I don’t know anything about autism and I don’t know anything about it, but I know that it’s one of the most frightening things that it must be for a parent to have an autistic child and not even know why.

Spasticus Autisticus

This is a video of Ian Dury's Spasticus Autisticus that Gem recommended I watch. The video can be found on youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6isXNVdguI8.

I think this is a potentially offensive song, however, I researched the lyrics as they are not very clear, and found them to be quite moving and in to way offensive.

These are the lyrics to Ian Dury’s Spasticus Autisticus, I intend to play the lyrics along with the song during the video of my brother at the end of my piece.

Spasticus(Autisticus)

I'm spasticus, I'm spasticus
I'm spasticus autisticus
I'm spasticus, I'm spasticus
I'm spasticus autisticus
I'm spasticus, I'm spasticus
I'm spasticus autisticus

I wibble when I piddle
Cos my middle is a riddle

I'm spasticus, I'm spasticus
I'm spasticus autisticus
I'm spasticus, I'm spasticus
I'm spasticus autisticus
I'm spasticus, I'm spasticus
I'm spasticus autisticus

I dribble when I nibble
And I quibble when I scribble

Hello to you out there in Normal Land
You may not comprehend my tale or understand
As I crawl past your window give me lucky looks
You can be my body but you'll never read my books

I'm spasticus, I'm spasticus
I'm spasticus autisticus
I'm spasticus, I'm spasticus
I'm spasticus autisticus
I'm spasticus, I'm spasticus
I'm spasticus autisticus

I'm knobbled on the cobbles
Cos I hobble when I wobble
Swim!

So place your hard-earned peanuts in my tin
And thank the Creator you're not in the state I'm in
So long have I been languished on the shelf
I must give all proceedings to myself

I'm spasticus, I'm spasticus
I'm spasticus autisticus
I'm spasticus, I'm spasticus
I'm spasticus autisticus
I'm spasticus, I'm spasticus
I'm spasticus autisticus

54 appliances in leather and elastic
100 000 thank yous from 27 spastics

Spasticus, spasticus
Spasticus autisticus
Spasticus, spasticus
Spasticus autisticus
Spasticus, spasticus
Spasticus autisticus

Widdling, griddling, skittling, diddling,
fiddling, diddling, widdling, diddling spasticus

I'm spasticus, spasticus
Spasticus autisticus
Spasticus, spasticus
Spasticus autisticus
Spasticus, spasticus
Spasticus autisticus

Spasticus, spasticus
Spasticus autisticus

I'm spasticus!
I'm spasticus!
I'm spasticus!
I'm spasticus!
I'm spasticus!
I'm spasticus!
I'm spasticus!
Spasticus!

The video can be found on youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6isXNVdguI8