Now, I’m lit­er­ally in this show so I figured prob­ably not the best for me to review it. This week we’ve got the lovely Cordy Black writ­ing some kind words!

The exper­i­ence starts in the foy­er, after a ritu­al of scan­ning and phone-wav­ing – the default pro­gramme for Illeg­ally Blind is presen­ted to the vis­it­or in spa­cious, pleas­antly bumpy Braille. With a token ‘access­ib­il­ity’ pro­gramme for the sighties, of course. The show’s vibe car­ries its sweet-and-sour mix of sar­casm and charm through the rest of the enter­tain­ment.

The per­son of the hour, Susan Wil­li­ams, wel­comes the audi­ence like guests to a messy home, shar­ing a snip­pet of insight (heh, a vis­ion joke) into their day to day. The pro­duc­tion is fully designed around Susan’s own char­ac­ter – undeni­ably charm­ing, a little wonky and cluttered, with dashes of belly-shak­ing humour. For example, the script nev­er loses the feel of being slightly off-the-cuff and alive, des­pite being planned with cap­tions.

A play about the senses needs great design. Spe­cial shout-out to the light­ing design by Brynne Task­er-Poland, which really gives life to the space at cru­cial moments and includes cap­tions in fun as well as prac­tic­al ways. Voi­ceover work by audio describers Eddie Kerr and Ana­stas­ia Mat­teini-Roberts (also the show’s dir­ect­or) lets the pro­duc­tion crew bring some extra com­ic moments to the piece. Sound design (Emma Maguire) is del­ic­ate enough to let Susan do their thing, step­ping for­ward where it needs to flesh out a scene or set a stronger mood.

Susan them­self brings a delight­ful phys­ic­al­ity and poet­ic verve to their per­form­ance – they’re an adept nar­rat­or, mak­ing bits of set trans­form, fling­ing props around and bring­ing joy­ful make-believe to the Stage’s black box. BATS reg­u­lars may know them as an impro­vis­or, and they’re also prone to bouts of spoken word poetry – those influ­ences come through in the show. But it’s their phys­ic­al pres­ence, in a large stage that could intim­id­ate any solo per­former, that really draws you into their world. I’d come vis­it again.