Instantly, as a disabled theatre goer, the title of The Super Special Disability Roadshow makes me nervous. It’s the word “special” – the particular euphemism that was in vogue for describing me and my peers in the mid-90s when I started school: “special education” for “special needs “ kids is loaded. Still, close to 30 years, I end up explaining to non-disabled people why we can just go ahead and use the term disabled, that far from a slur it is a way of existing in the world that fails to accommodate us.  

I quickly discovered that for Scottish Children’s Theatre Company Birds of Paradise, the title is a knowing nod to that very experience. Relieved, I settle in to watch.

The comfort of being able to watch this show from my bedroom is the first thing that strikes me. As a wheelchair user and theatre enthusiast, it cuts out many of the accessibility of the accessibility barriers I face when attending shows. No hidden booking fees for accessible seating, no seating arrangements that place me away from my friends, no fuss because I’m taking two seats worth of space on one ticket, no stairs or broken lift to contend with, no grumpy cabbie who is unsure about picking me and my wheelchair up afterwards, and the ability to watch it at my own pace.   

These are innovations of the pandemic era – that disabled artists were already experimenting with – which I hope we all continue to embrace in theatre-making. They give me hope for the future of the theatre as an increasingly accessible and inclusive art form.

Feeling like my access needs are in safe hands predisposes me to enjoy the experience. The show is also captioned for Hard of Hearing audiences – although I’m unclear how blind audiences would best access the show. Though it is covered off in a joke, audio description would improve the accessibility of this show, as well as interpreted performances.  

Watching an all disabled intergenerational cast perform is a joy. It is the joy of being represented. I relate to their quirky songs about people’s misconceptions of disability, I relate to their stories of inclusion and exclusion.

There is also a simple joy in that rare experience of disabled theatre having high production values. Too often it is seen as a favour or a social service to include disabled people in arts making. Too often this is seen as mutually exclusive to disabled people being seen as professional artists in their own right.  

The young people in this show are unlikely to labour under this misconception. I hope the experience will give them confidence in their talent and voice.

Illustrated by beautiful and understated animation sequences, it is the children’s stories that are the most engaging. They could have very easily been the heart of this show which is all about changing ways of seeing and experiencing disabled life.

The intergenerational tension explored here is: what does it mean to be disabled?  It feels familiar. It is a question that is live in our disabled communities.  It feels important and worthy of occupying disabled art. However, the nuanced intention of the work is overall underserved by the final piece.

For a short, sharp 45-minute piece, The Super Special Disability Roadshow seems to be struggling with its own identity as a work.

Positioned as an educational roadshow that is disrupted by the younger generation, there is too much time given to adult voice and inaccessible discussion of models of disability. This is arguably part of the conceit. But given the show is meant to be inclusive of the whole family from 8 years and up, it feels oddly weighted towards adults in language and focus, with the children’s ideas coming into their own only in the final third of the show. 

I wonder what rich possibilities for storytelling and new ideas about disability there would have been if the audience had been presented with four performers with equal room to express themselves throughout the whole show.  

It also feels confused as to who the intended audience is. Leaning on its form, the show tends towards educating a presumed non-disabled audience, while flirting with the lightness and joy of disability as an insider experience, and a joke.

Again, here I am willing the creatives to be brave and lean into this. More of this might have balanced out the more didactic moments. Then I would be watching something really made not only by us, but for us. This teeters between being for disabled people and falling into the category of educational art for others; something I’m more familiar with disabled artists creating.

In form and content this could only have been made now. It brings a very live discussion of disabled identity politics onto the digital stage. And in true disabled fashion the cast and crew make a virtue of the restrictions imposed by the world around us, using the form of digital theatre to great effect.

The moments where I feel it grappling for identity feel like familiar questions we ask as disabled artists. Disabled people are given little space to express ourselves through art as a whole community so we continue to face questions of how much to educate and how much to exist. And which of our many stories to tell.

This is a show of exciting possibilities. It wants only a push further in this direction to be something truly special.

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