The Big Push

This time next week Leftwing Idiot and I will be jumping on a train and heading up to Edinburgh for the Fringe Festival. All being well, Jess Mabel Jones (AKA Chopin) and our producer, Jolie, will meet us at the station. They’re up there already making the most of all the incredible theatre that’s going on.

We’re going to be doing a special week-long run of Backstage in Biscuit Land as part of the British Council and IF platform showcase. If you’re around between 24th and 30th of August, grab yourself a ticket and come along!

I went to the Fringe for the first time last year and it blew me away. Sure, Edinburgh’s not wheelchair-friendly at the best of times and I had a few gripes about access. But it feels like a lot’s happened since to change that, and I can’t wait to see what progress has been made.

Thanks to hard work by the likes of Attitude is Everything and Unlimited, I’m anticipating big changes, not just in terms of access, but also in the diversity of the performers taking to the stage.

And I’m not the only one. The Guardian’s Hannah Ellis-Petersen wrote recently about disabled performers pushing for a historic shift this year ‘from widening notoriously bad venue access to putting work by artists with disabilities at the heart of the world’s biggest arts festival.

I can’t wait to get up there and experience all of this for myself. I really hope you’ll be able to join me.

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