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.