disability
aleks.sierz
Has the pandemic made us more angry? Although Francesca Martinez’s debut play, which is at the National Theatre, was programmed before COVID, its belated opening has not dampened the playwright’s fiery criticism of the effects of Tory government austerity on the lives of people with disabilities.As you’d expect from the writer – who is an award-winning comedian, actor, author of What the **** Is Normal? and has cerebral palsy (though she prefers the word “wobbly”) – All of Us is written in a deeply committed and compassionate way, but although I agree with its political points, and am moved Read more ...
Graham Fuller
Give Them Wings is the biopic of Paul Hodgson, who seven months after he was born in 1965 was diagnosed with meningococcal meningitis. If that wasn’t bad enough, he survived his precarious childhood to become a devout fan of Durham’s hapless Darlington FC – it’s criminal that this low-budget British indie wasn’t titled Give Them Wingers.An ex-civil servant and now a screenwriter and producer, Hodgson has spent his life confined to a wheelchair and hampered by a speech impediment. Directed by onetime Bond heavy Sean Cronin (who cast himself as a football thug), the film version of Hodgson’s Read more ...
Saskia Baron
It’s well worth tracking down one of the September 29 special cinema screenings of Ric Burns' lovingly made documentary portrait of the writer and neurologist Oliver Sacks, or seeking it out online. Famous for his vivid, insightful descriptions of people living with disabling conditions (Awakenings, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, An Anthropologist on Mars), Sacks was born into a brilliant Jewish family of doctors in north-west London in 1933, but after studying medicine at Oxford, spent most of his working life in America. Burns had the luxury of making the film with full co- Read more ...
Saskia Baron
When CODA opened Sundance in May, it was an instant hit with that liberal, kindly audience and was snapped up by Disney at great expense. It’s easy to see why – CODA is a funny, easy-to-watch coming of age comedy that allows viewers to feel warm and understanding towards Deaf people. It’s got Oscar nominations written all over it. But I’m curious to see what the Deaf community make of the film. Certainly its American producers have dodged the attacks that the original French version La Famille Bélier received back in 2014 when speaking actors were cast in the roles of Deaf Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
I once went to see Motorhead, back in the days when real men didn’t wear earplugs, and afterwards it was if somebody had completely sawn off the top half of my hearing register. Weird and scary, and the band were putting themselves through that every night.Darius Marder’s absorbing and ingenious Sound of Metal takes as his subject a thrash-metal drummer who suffers near-total hearing loss, and is suddenly faced with having to re-evaluate his life, his career and the central relationship with his bandmate, Lou. Marder pitches us head first into a stage performance by Lou and drummer Ruben ( Read more ...
Owen Richards
Sound of Metal has been a long time coming. Director and writer Darius Marder faced years of delays ranging from casting changes to the whole world shutting down. Was it worth the wait? Well, six Academy Award nominations including Best Film certainly suggest it was.The film follows Riz Ahmed and Olivia Cooke as Ruben and Lou, band members and lovers living the ideal rock'n'roll lifestyle. But when Ruben starts to suffer major hearing loss, it's clear their co-dependent relationship is built on shaky foundations. To avoid falling back into addiction, Ruben must isolate himself in an AA Read more ...
Saskia Baron
This warm-hearted and informative documentary series about life in a Welsh special education school probably isn’t going to be a ratings buster for the BBC but it’s one of the most touching and well-made shows I’ve seen in a long time.A Special School adheres to the classic format originated in Educating Essex back in 2011. We are rapidly introduced to a cast of quirky teachers, loving parents and the remarkable young pupils they support. Producer-director Ffion Humphries filmed the series last year at Ysgol y Deri near Cardiff, which claims to be the largest special school in Read more ...
Owen Richards
In 2018, directors Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui burst onto the documentary scene with McQueen, a visually stunning study of British fashion designer Alexander McQueen. Acclaim and offers followed, but no-one could have predicted the subject of their second feature.Rising Phoenix is an expansive look at the Paralympics, its athletes, and the wider disability rights movement. Releasing on Netflix this week, the documentary covers the success of London 2012, the fiasco of Rio 2016, and the incredible stories behind the biggest names in para-sport. Owen Richards spoke with directors Bonhôte and Read more ...
aleks.sierz
During the current pandemic, stories about isolation have a particular resonance. Feelings of claustrophobia, loneliness and frustration slide off the stage and echo in our subconscious – yes, this is us alright. One of the most prescient is Athena Stevens’s Scrounger, an impassioned autobiographical account of how the crass inefficiency of an airline results in a wheelchair user being stuck at home for weeks on end. Written during her residency at the Finborough fringe venue, and staged early this year, it is now streamed as a film and beautifully conveys both its modernistic aesthetic and Read more ...
Owen Richards
At a point in the early noughties, every third film was a teen comedy about a road trip to lose one's virginity. It’s a genre most were glad to see the back of. What a pleasant surprise Come As You Are is then, which brings much needed heart and relevancy to this tired trope.Based on a true story, we follow Scotty, Matt and Mo as they travel to Montreal to visit a brothel. But this isn’t some sleezy trip – each of the characters has a physical disability, and with their parents as their primary carers, having an active sex life has been nearly impossible. So, with the support of driver/nurse Read more ...
aleks.sierz
If any musical can live up to this title in these troubled times, it must be this show from Graeae, a theatre company whose mission is to champion the work of Deaf and disabled artists. Founded in 1980, its name alludes to the three sisters of Greek myth who shared one eye and one tooth between them, and since 1997 Jenny Sealey MBE has been its artistic director, and the company has embraced both plays about different kinds of disability and given new resonance to other work, such as revivals of classics.Graeae’s shows are always captioned and signed, which as well as being inclusive, also Read more ...
Matt Wolf
As we continue into a third month in lockdown, the arts continue to suggest ever-changing worlds beyond. The invaluable National Theatre at Home this week looks across the Thames to a smaller venue's large-scale Coriolanus, starring a certain superhero movie icon, whilst the equally cherished Graeae streams their lively musical theatre tribute to the late Ian Dury. Beauty and the Beast, from a Chichester ensemble of young people, reminds us of the durability of that tale as old as time, even as The Shows Must Go On continues to look beyond Andrew Lloyd Webber to other musical mainstays, this Read more ...