Comedian Francesca Martinez’s debut play, in which she also stars, is an illuminating, rage-filled, sporadically witty portrait of life for disabled people under Tory policies of austerity and so-called welfare reform. But mostly it’s a blunt instrument with which she batters institutional and societal callousness.
Fair enough: the humiliation of constant PIP and ETA reassessments, and the resultant privations she describes, don’t lend themselves to subtlety. Martinez has cerebral palsy (though prefers to describe herself as “wobbly”) and here she and other actors with disabilities powerfully communicate what it’s like to be unable to feed, dress or wipe yourself without help. Or to go to work, get high or get laid at will.
